To Stand Or Not Stand

A few months back The American Legion declared all baseball players and coaches participating in baseball games sanctioned by TAL must stand for the national anthem at all events. If they don't they will be banned forever from baseball games sanctioned by the association. 

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. If my son, who is a 17 year old American Legion baseball player, decided not to stand for the anthem I would support him. Also, I've coached baseball from T-ball on up to the high school level. If one of my players chose not to stand I would also support them. I, on the other hand, had thought I would choose to stand as a coach. My thinking was an individual could stand for the anthem AND work towards a more democratic and civil society. In other words, I wouldn't be standing in the name of an authoritarian patriotism. But after reading this paragraph in Doug Lummis's "Radical Democracy" I wonder if the United States flag stands for an authoritarian patriotism. 

"In a democracy, it must be remembered, patriotism means the love that binds a people together, not the misplaced love of the institutions that dominate the people. Authoritarian patriotism is a resigning of one's will, right of choice, and need to understand to the authority; it's emotional base is gratitude for having been liberated from the burden of democratic responsibility. Political virtue--democratic patriotism--is the commitment to, a knowledge of, and ability to stand for the whole, and is necessary condition for democracy." -- (Pg. 37) 

Right now, the United States flag stands for an authoritarian patriotism. We would have the right to local, community self-government if it did not stand for that, but it doesn’t. The United States government protects corporations over communities and the landbase that supports and nourishes them physically, emotionally and spiritually. Standing Rock is a case in point. A local community should be able to exercise their right as self-governing people to say "no" to pipelines and other corporate harms. That’s simply not the case at this point in time. 

I don't know If I'll be standing for the anthem this upcoming baseball season. 

Let's Not Prepare Our Children For Extinction

Back to blogging again. I usually just post my short writings on Facebook. Simply because I have such terrible internet service out here in rural Wisconsin that it's a pain to download what I write onto blogger. Here is what I've been up to today.

News from home: I was talking with a friend yesterday. She is also involved in the Community Right's Movement. She mentioned that she is reading The Invisibility of Success, by Daniel Quinn. So I sat down this morning and read a few essays out of it. I personally think Quinn's work should be a teaching tool in the CR movement. Anyway, this paragraph out of Preparing our Children for Extinction really spoke to me:

"We absolutely must stop sending our children out to save the world armed with the undermining belief that humans are inherently toxic. Because if they truly believe this, then they will truly be prepared for extinction. We must be on guard against teaching our children--even by indirection--that the very best thing that can happen to the world is the extinction of the human race." (Pg. 89)

I agree with this profound statement. I have since I read it well over a decade ago. Once our children are convinced WE are humanity they go from a world full of possibilities to a world of scarcity. Their souls are blighted. The world is no longer sacred. And they end up wishing away their time awaiting their entry into heaven.

Music and Schoolwork

Daniel (15yrs. old) says to me, as we're sitting at the kitchen table with books and computers listening to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, "I bet there aren't many kids that get to do their school work and listen to drug induced music." I laughed, then said, "One time I had a history teacher named Mr. Posselt. He was heavily influenced by the sixties, never married, led guided hunts in Minnesota, lived as a beggar, coached wrestling and football, taught your aunties, uncles, and grandparents, grew up in Antigo, and so on. Every Friday he'd let us move our desks wherever we wanted, shut all the lights off, and we'd listen to drug induced music for the hour. He called it Moments of Enrichment. His number one rule was: No Dope!

"Dad?" he interrupts and asks, "Do you think he'd stand with Scott Walker?" I laughed my ass off.

Getting Out The Door

It's 6:30 AM. It's been one of those mornings. Annie wasn't able to get out the door before Hayden (3 yr. old) and Sophia (1 yr. old) got out of bed. That means nursing Sophia (I'm not equipped!) and a diaper change (I'm capable but not so much willing). They're sad that mom has to go to work in 10 minutes. Hayden has started his usual mourning process. Tears and the occasional scream. You'd think somebody had died. I'm questioning this whole attachment parenting idea as I'm holding Sophia. I don't think she knows whether to cry or jump back into mom's arms. Annie should be just about to the Post Office by now, but she's still trying to get out the door. She tries to make the final break by saying the usual, "Okay, now I really have to go." We all go through our final good byes with hugs and kisses again. She's grabs the door handle is able to get the front door open without too much trouble. She steps out onto the porch and is just about able to get the door shut when Hayden grabs the handle and opens it. He says with a concerned tone in his voice, "Mom! Watch out for mice, rabbits, and deer. Because they jump out on the road!"

All Learning is Remembering

I learned yesterday in a talk by Michael Meade that "all learning is remembering." What I'm hearing him say is that if you want to learn there has to be some remembering involved. In other words, the knowledge is already there it is just needs to be awakened. It's also interesting to note that in The Story of B Daniel Quinn titled one section The Great Forgetting and followed up later with a section titled The Great Remembering. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that if any schooling program isn't aimed at remembering then all it is doing is putting kids and adults to sleep and it isn't worth the taxpayers money. The Quote below out of The Story of B better illustrates some aspects of this remembering.

"B means to gather the voices of humans all over planet into one voice singing, 'The world must live, the world must live! We are only one species among billions. The gods don't love us more than they love spiders or bears or whales or water lilies. The age of The Great Forgetting has ended, and all its lies and delusions have been dispelled. Now we remember who we are. Our kin are not cherubim, seraphim, thrones, principalities, and powers. Our kin are mayflies, lemurs, snakes, eagles, and badgers. The blinding we suffered in the Great Forgetting has abated, so we no longer imagine that Man was ill-made. We no longer imagine that the gods botched their work when it came to us. We no longer think they know how to make every single thing in the whole vast universe except a human being. The blinding we suffered in the Great Forgetting has passed, so we can no longer live as though nothing matters but us. We can no longer believe that suffering is the lot the gods hand in mind for us. We can no longer believe that death is sweet release to our true destiny. We no longer yearn for the nothingness of nirvana. We no longer dream of wearing crowns of gold in the royal court of heaven.'"--Pg. 324, The Story of B

No Need To School

For a couple of days now I have been trying to come up with a post to express my frustration with other homeschooling parents that I've come into contact with in my community. Why? Over the years every parent I've talked to assumes that we keep our kids out of public school based on Christian values. In other words, they think that we think there needs to be more Christianity taught in our schools. That's not the case. And here is where I think my frustration is coming from: I don't think children need to be schooled (Daniel Quinn convinced me of this back in the late nineties), but I never say it. That would be blasphemy. And I think it would open up can of worms that I don't want opened.

"I'm not in the least favor of home schooling, Julie. It's not merely linguistic whimsy that connects the schooling of children with the schooling of fish. Schooling of any kind is unnecessary and counterproductive in human children. Children no more need schooling at age five or six or seven or eight than they need it age two or three, when they effortlessly perform prodigies of learning. In recent years parents have seen the futility of sending their children to regular schools, and the schools have replied by saying, 'Well, all right, we'll permit you to keep your children at home, but of course you understand that your children still must be schooled, you can't just trust them to learn what they need to learn. We'll check up on you to make sure you're not just letting them learn what they need to learn but are learning what our state legislators and curriculum writers think they should learn.' At age five or six home schooling might be a lesser evil than regular schooling, but after that it's hardly even a lesser evil. Children don't need schooling. They need access to what they want to learn--and that means they need access to the world outside the home."-- Daniel Quinn, Pg.166, My Ishmael

The Schooling Question

Our kids don't go to school. When asked about it I usually say we homeschool our kids. From now on I'm going to differentiate and tell them we unschool.

I have to admit unschooling is tough to deal with at times. The very idea of allowing our children to follow their nose in their pursuit of learning can be frightening. Being a parent who has spent close to 14 years in the public compulsory schooling system probably has something to do with it. Given that most adults around me keep telling me that kids need structure and schooling probably has something else to do with it. Of course, there's the fact that my grandma was a grade school teacher who grew up during The Great Depression and came of age during The New Deal may be a factor too...

My First Day of School

This morning I found myself sitting on the couch looking out the front window at our birdfeeder. There were cardinals, nuthatches, pine siskins, and various other birds (Even a few chipmunks) that were feeding on black sunflower seeds and playing around. As I was doing this a thought came to mind: This really lightens the heart. Generally, in the morning, I'm pissed off about some aspect of our way life. I don't know why. It could be the coffee or it could be the books I read. Who knows.

While doing this it occurred to me that the kids in my community were on the school bus on the way to school at that moment. Then it occurred to me the same was true for me when I was child. At that time in the morning I was either on the school bus or in my parent's car on the way to my grandparent's house, and if not their house then the babysitters. Then I was taken back to my first day of grade school. I spent the first twelve years of my life growing up in a trailer court. And on school mornings all the kids of the trailer park would meet down at the bus stop at the main entrance of the park. On that morning the school bus pulled up and the kids that have done this before were getting in line to await the opening of the sliding door. As they did this I took off running down the highway that ran along the front of the court. It wasn't planned, it just happened. My mom had to run down the highway and drag me back to the bus. I was in tears. I did not want to go to school. I hated the idea of being away from home all day.

Eventually the bus driver and my mom got me calmed down. I ended up sitting in the front seat of the school bus that day. The bus driver assured me everything would be okay and she'd take care of me.

Throughout my life I've looked back on that experience simply as a young boy not wanting to be away from his mother. But it occurred to me this morning that it wasn't just about a young boy being too attached to mom. I may not have wanted to leave my family. And I'm not just talking about my parents and my sister. I'm taking it beyond mom and dad and sister. I'm thinking about the frogs in the crick alongside the house, the baseball diamond just a few hundred yards away, the old abandoned camper that used to sit in the field, the red recliner that my dad used to sit in after work, the old basketball hoop in the yard behind the house.

There was something inside of me that morning that just didn't want to go to school. And there are days like today when that something is alive and well.

Not Innocence But Beauty

Once and awhile, as a father, I'm able to remember this.

"Not its innocence makes the child's psyche so susceptible to corruption of its desire, but its attachment to beauty. Eating disorders, media addiction, hyperactivity and victimization by exploiters are based in the child's native desire for beauty in this world comparable to the richness of its fantasy in the unconscious soul."--James Hillman, pg. xv, Inscapes of the Child's World

Daydreaming, Kids, and Homeschooling

A good article HERE on daydreaming. If I can give my kids one thing hopefully it is enough time to daydream. Now that I think of it that is one of the main reasons why we homeschool or unschool.

Thank you to Naturalawareness.net for sharing this.

A Slice of Morning

Aristotle once said, "It would seem that experience of particular things is a sort of courage." I think I know what he's getting at. There was a period in my life when on a daily basis I'd just go sit in the woods behind my house for half-n-hour up to a half a day. I'd take in all the surroundings and activity with my senses. In other words, I payed attention. And it had a revolutionary feel to it when I was out there on a weekday when everyone else was at work. I eventually quit, though. Why? I didn't want to go broke. There is no money in it. And besides how can one pay attention to particular things if one is living in a system that, as Lewis Mumford so eloquently pointed out, is based on "order, power, predictability, and above all, control."

The system has to go. But I'm hoping I find the courage Aristotle is talking about before that happens.

#

Today, I work with wood. I'm either going to get a load of firewood or work on my son's bunk bed. Working with wood, I've noticed, grounds me.

#

Conversations with 13yr. old son.

Son: Are we going anywhere today?

Me: We're journeying to the center of the universe.

Son: What!?

Me: Haven't you ever heard of that song from sixties or seventies? (I hope I'm not just imagining this. For some odd reason I'm think the Moody Blues had a song with this lyric)

Son: No.

Me: Yeah, it came out during the sixties. When your grandparents were young. You know, when a lot of them were doing acid to find out the meaning of life. Or, like Robert Bly has said, they were trying to dynamite the water out of the pond.

Son: Oh yeah, instead of bucketing the water out.

Frost on The Father

"You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's."--Robert Frost

Watch Ripken Hitting Daddy

The first thing my son (He's 2 1/2 yrs. old) said to me this morning was, "watch Ripken hitting." I'm guessing he's watched this video close to a 100 times already. It's almost a daily occurance. I've got three videos put out by the Ripkens. One on hitting and the other two are on pitching and defense. He only watches the hitting video.

He shouldn't need much hitting instruction in years to come.

Rilke and Fathers

I thought about these lines by Rilke while doing dishes

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glass,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward the same church, which he forgot.--Rilke

Happy Fathers Day!

Tomatoes Are In

Yesterday marked the day that our tomatoes were officially planted. Annie planted them while I entertained our 2 year old. Basically that amounted to him following me around the place with his batting helmet smashed over his baseball cap on top of his head with only a T-shirt on his back. I did a few things that needed to be done while he added commentary and asked "why?" a hundred or more times. He definately has a way of putting things into perspective for me. Appearance or time definately doesn't concern him much.

I also finally put up the rain gauge that my parents bought for me 5 years ago. Checked it after the thunderstorm and it read close to a quarter inch of rain and bird crap. It sorta looked like a milkshake. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's found the gauge useful. Hopefully, they don't make a habit out of this

Quinn Quote Saturday

"When our children start becoming murderers, we typically don't wonder what's wrong with the system that's turning them INTO murderers, we wonder what's wrong with THEM. Imagine an assembly line that out of every hundred vehicles turns out one that is horribly defective. Then imagine--instead of examining the assembly line--taking the defective vehicle out and shooting it. Then, when the next one comes along--instead of examining the assembly line--taking THAT one and shooting it. And when the next one comes along--instead of examining the assembly line--taking THAT one out and shooting it."--Daniel Quinn

I pulled this quote from this essay.

A True Coaching Inspiration

Revisiting this powerful article for some inspiration before baseball practices start next week. Mike Powell, in my mind, is a good example of a male mother for his players, and what masculinity is to some degree. He's showed the boys his wounds and in return they've showed him their wounds. I think it was the mythologist Micheal Meade who once said, "I'll show you my wound if you show me yours." I have learned through experience it is a challenge to lay your wounds out there for younger men hear, but they won't trust you otherwise.

Quote from article: "Powell's goal, as he told his friends, was 'for each boy to say that for the first time in my academic career I had someone who really loved me.'"

Animal Souls

The other day our 12 yr. old mentioned that his friend informed him that animals didn't have souls, but humans do. Well, I said, I guess that all depends on who you ask.

“Many Indians have told me that the most basic difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that Westerners view the world as dead, and not as filled with speaking, thinking, feeling subjects as worthy and valuable as themselves.” ― Derrick Jensen

Things Are Alright

About an hour after I posted yesterday (Read yesterdays post), our 12 year old and I were talking about fear while we were raking up sawdust. And out of the blue he mentions this quote from Frank Herbert's "Dune" (He listened to the book on tape a few weeks back):

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

I was proud, impressed, and stunned. There are times when we are concerned that he is spending too much time in his room listening to books. Well, yesterday cooled that concern a bit

Understanding the Acorn Theory

More quotes out of James Hillman's "The Soul's Code." This will be the last day of the parenting and adulthood thread. Also, there are more quotes then usual in this post partly because it is in memory of Mr. Hillman who passed away at the end of October in 2011.

He's speaking to adults here:

"I want us to envision that what children go through has to do with finding a place in the world for their specific calling. They are trying to live two lives at once, the one they were born with and the one of the place and among the people they were born into." [James Hillman, Pg. 13, The Soul's Code]

"So this book is about children, offering a way to regard them differently, to enter their imaginations, and to discover in their pathologies what their daimon might be indicating and what their destiny might want." [James Hillman, Pg. 14, The Soul
s Code]

"A child defends its daimon's dignity. That's why even a frail child at a 'tender' age refuses to submit to what it feels is unfair and untrue and reacts so savagely to abusive misperecptions. The idea of childhood abuse needs to be expanded beyond the sexual kind--which is so vicious not principally because it is sexual, but because it abuses the dignity at the core of personality, that acorn of myth."[Hillman, Pg.27 The Soul's Code.]

He explains what the acorn theory or "acorn of myth" is here:

"The acorn theory proposes, and I will bring evidence for the claim that you and I and every single person is born with a defining image. Individuality resides in a formal cause--to use old philosophical language going back to Aristotle. We each embody our own idea, in the language of Plato and Plotinus. And this form, this idea, this image does not tolerate too much straying. The theory also attributes to this innate image an angelic or daimonic intention, as if it were a spark of consciousness; and, moreover, holds that it has our interest at heart because it chose us for its reasons."[James Hillman, Pg. 12, The Soul's Code]

I like the idea the it has chosen us and has our interests at heart. If you ever want to read a good autobiography that supports this idea pick up "Providence", by Daniel Quinn. I think he did an amazing job at showing how his daimon guided him throughout his life.