The Dirtbag Educator

Remarkable Reflections

One of my long-time teachers, Jeanne Heileman (@jeanneheilemanyoga), recently posted a, well, remarkable story regarding one of her own remarkable memories from the past year. She asked others to share their remarkable memories. Naturally, I was inspired. Naturally, I found a way to riff and improvise on her seed of an idea. Memories are past, yet I wanted to capture a sense of the present and presence. A reflection may come from the past, but I believe it can be very active in driving the present moment.

So here goes... For me, reflections start with a moment, and then begin to trigger a recall of milestones from a much longer journey. For me, I find it best not to focus on goals and destinations (nor the past), but rather the serendipity of the trials and joys discovered along the way.

This is the year that I began the rich and arduous journey that is  part of being a special education teacher to students who are at risk and who have frequently experienced one or more deep and serious trauma. It is challenging beyond belief. And rewarding and beautiful beyond belief. Like my Jeanne's foster dog care, my work has been as healing for me as it may be for my students. They stand amongst my greatest teachers.

A long time ago, Jeanne suggested I explore becoming a teacher of yoga. After some consideration, we both understood that then was not the right timing for me. Years later, what I have have learned from her and many other blessed teachers carries and sustains me with my many children... both my own and my students. Jeanne once said, “If your teacher doesn’t have an active teacher themself, proceed very, very cautiously.” Thank you, thank you, thank you for being that teacher amongst a pantheon of brilliant, caring, and light-providing teachers. Always a student first, then a teacher, my purpose is to pass along the wealth that has been passed to me.

The quote from Hamlet is a gift from another of my greatest teachers, John Scarborough, who saw the spark within me and inscribed those words in a gift on the occasion of my transition to college from high school.

Much peace and many hugs to you all in these coming days.

An Ineffable Point of Embarcation

So begins this blog, The Dirtbag Educator, not at the beginning, but at a continuation of a journey already in progress. There are journeys taking place on many levels, all the time. For oneself, for other human beings, for flora and fauna, for life itself. For geologic substances, for particles minute and masses incomprehensible, both sub-atomic and galactic. For concepts and ideas, for feelings and emotions, forthe mysterious and unknowable. For the universe itself, of all its mass, energy, and time.

This journey, this Odyssey, has no beginning nor end, but rather milestones along the way. Some are more significant that others and we mark these celebratingly or sufferingly or shades of gray in-between.

This is a milestone of itself, a result, in part, of the still developing Dirtbag Dad blog, but also a result of a myriad other details and events, large and small.

I begin with this piece, Steve Reich's Violin Fase (aka Violin Phase) with movement interpreted by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. 

It is ineffable in terms of human language. Yet it speaks volumes visually, auditorially, movement-wise, and tactilely. If we were to being present in this place, no doubt, the taste and smell of the forest would resonate. 

There is a circle, a mandala-like sand surface, etched by fluid, sublime music, and many roads leading to this hub. The magic play of light. The varying perspectives of the camera's eye. So much delight, so many questions, so much in which simply to be and not worry about explanations, the past or the future. 

So begins my work here. I am feeling my way through the forest, on an Odyssey of my own. It began long ago, as a clever and uniformed young man. I listened to birds who suggested they way to go (they were right). I have known many paths, always explored and with an inquisitive mind, some willingly and some not.

I am Eric Fletcher Samsel Larson. I am a teacher.