Skiing Seeing Being

Greem Mountain Valley School student athletes

My second great adventure in education, after two years of teaching 3rd/4th grade in a rural Vermont school, was to join a college buddy and two of his friends to start a ski racing academy in the Mad River Valley, Vermont.  That private secondary school became the Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS).  

In the third year of the school (1976), I applied for and received a grant from the State of Vermont to develop a course entitled, “Skiing, Seeing, Being.”  I know: whoa?!?!  It was an attempt to get at why what we were doing was not just fun, but also generative, even educational.  

Green Mountain Valley School campus

The basic premise was a well established theory of education championed by John Dewey whose home is enshrined in Burlington, Vermont: that we learn through a process of having experiences and then reflecting on them, describing them, and, thereby embedding them in our memory.  

So, I wondered, are we learning through skiing?  I suspected two things.  First of all, that you don’t learn from the experience unless you reflect on it.  You’re just free range adolescent chickens, having fun no doubt, but not really getting anywhere, except slightly happier. But, secondly, I thought that if we created a practice of reflection that it could migrate into other areas, like learning how to write and read (that I was supposed to be teaching), and thereby develop a sense of self, of being.

So, it was a practice of skiing (experience), seeing (reflection, class with Ash), and being (discovered through describing and writing, integration into self).

It turned out to be a fun and productive practice.  After all, the students were ski junkies and loved to talk about skiing, particularly their peak experiences.  Our classroom discussions were stimulated by a simple prompt: “Tell us about what happened today on snow.”  Then, at the end of class came the “assignment:”

“Ok, for tomorrow, bring in a written version of what you related today.”  

Green Mountain Valley School student ski racer

Over the course of the ski racing season, each student collected their “stories.”  During the last weeks of the semester they re-read their writings and discovered patterns in their experiences and reflections.  The final questions were: “How do your experiences contribute to who you are becoming?  What does ski racing mean to you?  Can you draw connections to other parts of your life?” To enrich our discussions and perspective we read from a variety of sources.  They included Naked Poetry, a marvelous anthology of modern poets, and Six Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler

I regret that I didn’t collect and keep some of their writings.  Many were transformative.  Just last month, over 400 GMVS alum gathered to celebrate its 50th anniversary.  Three of my former students confided in me that that class had changed and directed their lives; that they had discovered a way to find meaning in their experiences; and that, as one said through tears, “I discovered the essence of joy, and, as best I can, I live it every day.”

Skiing Seeing Being.

Green Mountain Valley School ski racers

Circles

Full moon watercolor by Anne Pratt, Louise’s sister

The perfect pearl of a moon hung in a navy blue, velvet sky over the trees, over the fields, framed by our bedroom windows. Our room was illuminated with a soft light. I am always amazed by the full moon, especially. A perfect bright circle in the sky. What more do we need to guide us to be whole?

I have been aware of circles of all kinds this month. I visited a kindergarten in Cambridge, Massachusetts last week. Eighteen children and a teacher sat in a perfect circle at morning meeting, listening, engaged, respectful, happy, learning. This is a cultivated practice in a classroom. I wrote about circles of learning in conversation and dialogue in a blog post five years ago. How to be fully present for one another. Facing all others, taking a place in a circle of classmates, friends, or new people, becoming an essential part of a whole.

Kindergarten circle for read alouds, The College School.

The Buddhist bell at morning meditation is a perfect brass bowl that sings a beautiful tone when invited to ring with a soft wooden “shu-moku.” The shape and the sound is meant to clear our minds, to bring us back to our basic goodness, to prepare us for mediation. The larger the bell, the deeper and more sonorous the sound. Our family has listened to the bell for many years starting when we attended retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh in the 80s. We often ring a bell at meals, stopping to be grateful for each other, and the food on our table, and all the hard work that has brought the food to us and us to the table.

Thich Nhat Hanh ringing the bell, California family retreat, 1989

We attended a funeral of a dear friend a few weeks ago. It was Episcopal and followed the liturgy. We were uplifted by the heavenly choir and organ, the diverse clergy in vestments made of African cloth, the order of the service, both mournful and stately, and gorgeous and at full volume. Somehow, I felt no limits in this service. No walls between all the traditions that I have been lucky enough to be a part of. At the end of the service, the clergy and young acolytes all surrounded the cremains that were in a box surrounded by white roses. There was period of silence and moments of bearing witness for all of us, all together. This was a circle of grief and ritual, coming and going, birth and death.

Later, I thought of reading about elephant herds who surround an elephant who has died in a perfect circle. I thought of our family of two parents and two sons instinctively holding hands and encircling my mother moments after she had died. I thought of our family’s and many families’ practice of group hugs, forming a circle of arms and bodies entwined,, to give thanks, to laugh, to squeeze one another, to be encircled in love.

I thought of the circle of song and music that I have attended lately at a new place called Gather on Saturdays in the town of Middlebury, Vermont, initiated by the local Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community. People of all walks of life gather here for comfort, for food, for a listening ear, for friendship, for care. This poster hangs outside the space, which is in the middle of downtown Middlebury:

Why do we Gather?

We gather for comfort. We gather to celebrate. We gather to mourn. We gather to mark transitions. We gather to honor and acknowledge. We gather to welcome and to say goodbye. We gather to be safe. We gather to pray. We gather to laugh. We gather to recover. We gather to create. We gather to find our way. We gather to wish each other well. We gather to make decisions. We gather to be silent together. We gather to build community. We gather to solve problems we can’t solve on our own. We gather to show strength. We gather to be vulnerable. We gather because we need one another.

Something inside us calls us to gather and to form circles at beginnings and endings, at times of ritual, at times of joy and happiness. As you enter this summer, may you find many circles of beauty and care…in the natural world, in friendship, in sorrow and in joy. With many blessings to each of you.

Miracles of Spring at Home

Everything blooming at once…apple trees, daffodils, lilacs. The lush yellow green of spring enveloping us. The deep blue sky over us. We somehow feel that this time of year is heaven on earth in Vermont. We hope that spring is beautiful for you wherever you are and as we near the end of the school year, that your work and your lives are joyous and fulfilling.

The orchard we live in in full bloom

Lilacs transplanted from Ashley’s home farm 30 years ago!

Late blooming daffodils

Crabapple about to flower

Herb and tomato “starts” for the garden

Forget-me-nots transplanted from a dear friend’s garden, now beside our front steps

Joyful Mindful Travel

Athens, Plaka neighborhood

We just returned to Vermont from a long and wonderful adventure. We feel grateful for every moment of our trip and equally grateful to be home in the Vermont landscape turning lush green and full of blooms.

On our trip, we traveled for the first time to Turkey and to Greece. We were enchanted by Istanbul…the layers of history, the magnificent Hagia Sophia, mosques and turrets, the daily call to prayer throughout the city, the ease we felt in a place where we had been told we might not feel safe. We fell in love with Greece…the rugged, mountainous landscape, the generous, kind, spirited people, the olive oil and olive trees, the ancient history everywhere.

We also participated in a Buddhist retreat with monastics from Plum Village, the main retreat center of the late Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.  I posted a reflection here about Thich Nhat Hanh in January of 2022 when he died at the age of 95.  I wrote about our family’s experiences with him in the late 80’s and 90’s when we attended retreats when our sons were young.  It was a joy to be back with the monastics from this beautiful tradition.  We lived with them for a week in a small village in the Pyrenees during what they call a Snow Retreat.  We were about 60 people, ages 20-80 and from many different countries.  The monastics were from Holland, Italy, France, and Vietnam.  A somewhat surprising characteristic of the monks and nuns of Plum Village that will always be with me is that they are irrepressibly joyful.  They laugh, they joke, they skip, and play volleyball, and at our Snow Retreat, they skied!

We found ourselves slowing down to their pace, and being joyful also… singing, eating in silence and appreciating our food, listening to talks and fellow participants, and sitting in meditation.  I felt so alive that week, as I followed my breath, and fully embraced the beauty all around us as well as the community we became.

Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

All through our trip, Ashley and I both stopped to draw and sketch almost every day. What struck me again and again, is how much drawing and painting on location, in the middle of wherever you find yourself, is like meditation and feels like mindfulness in action.  When I engage in this seeing drawing sketchbook practice, time disappears, I become completely focused on what I am looking at and seeing, and on my materials at hand.  I become “lost” in the present moment with all my senses fully alive in a playful, joyful experience.

Erechtheum Temple of Athena Polias, Acropolis, Athens

I have a vivid memory of every place where I sat to draw or paint, starting with the Snow Retreat.  I remember the feel of the air on my skin, the weather, the spot I was sitting, the people around me, the sounds, the time of day. I remember the place and what I was drawing, in detail.

An interesting, timely book just came out, Your Brain on Art.  Authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross offer compelling scientific research that shows how engaging in an art project in visual arts, music, design, even cooking, for as little as twenty to forty minutes a day reduces the stress hormone cortisol, no matter your skill level, nurtures our well-being, and leads us to a flourishing kind of life.

Harbor and Venetian castle, Nafplio, Greece

From their website: Your Brain on Art weaves a tapestry of breakthrough research, insights from multidisciplinary pioneers, and compelling stories from people who are using the arts to enhance their lives.

Before we left for our trip I read another recently published book by a sketchbook artist, Koosje Koene, Life is Better When you Draw It.  Koosje is a fervent advocate for just doing it! Just get started with this playful, fun, bold, meditative practice.  You will remember your life. You will fully be present for your life. You will slow down.  If you start, you will learn.  If you seek out companions, they will help you.  Urban and natural world sketchers are everywhere now.  So are podcasts, youtube videos, local classes, online classes...if you want support and or instruction, it is easy to find.

Chania Harbor, Crete

Spring is a lovely time to start a sketchbook.  Koosje says, just find an ordinary unlined notebook and a pen and start.  You can add materials as you learn, get curious, or find yourself in an art store. 

The day before we headed out on our trip, I copied a quote from Leonard Cohen in the front of my sketchbook.

It’s true!  

The years are flying past and we all waste so much time wondering if we should do this or that.

The thing is to leap, to try, to take a chance. Leonard Cohen

Last views of Greece

Beautiful Stuff

Building with treasure boxes from The Beautiful Stuff Project at Prospect Hill Academy

Last week, we worked with teachers at Prospect Hill Academy, (PHA), in Somerville, Massachusetts. We have worked alongside the teachers and administrators at their Pre-Grade 3 campus since last June…primarily supporting the kindergarten teachers as they move to a more meaningful, project-based curriculum and more engaging classroom organization. 

While we were at PHA, we met Marina Seevak, who is also working with the kindergarten teachers. Marina founded the Beautiful Stuff Project so that Pre-Grade 2 children might have access to open-ended materials and loose parts in an organized, efficient way.  Marina believes that young children need to play with materials to learn.  She and her organization work with schools primarily in the Boston area.

Treasure box exploration at PHA

We were intrigued to see Marina arrive with large handmade placemats as well as small rectangular cardboard treasure boxes full of curated recycled materials, one of each for each child.  We watched as she introduced these simple materials and explained to the children that they would each have a box to open and to explore and play with in any way that they chose to.

We watched as 20 children opened their boxes and could not keep their hands off the materials!  They started to explore and combine the materials, to role play, to talk to each other about what they were making, to transform shapes, to make patterns, to stack and build, and to tell stories.   

(Dialogue below recorded by the lead teacher in the room.)

Michael: “This is a phone. Hello, can you hear me?” holding a small rectangle of plastic tile to one ear.

Bernardo: “Yes, I can hear you now,” holding a rectangular piece of foam to his ear.

Michael: “Good. I am ready now. You can call the bank and they will give you the money.”

Meanwhile, Bernardo is building a car, using all the materials from his treasure box.  And Michael is building a bank.

Treasure box exploration at PHA

It was thrilling to see the children so engaged, so pleased, so full of energy and ideas, so interested in what other children were making, so seamlessly making one thing and then the next.

Marina told the children that they could put everything back into their box if they wanted to, give it a little shake, and then open it up again and see what would happen next.

She explained to us that the treasure boxes she brought to introduce the ideas and framework were the “classic” treasure boxes, well curated, with a variety of materials that children would be drawn to…glass “gemstones,” small tiles, cylinders of cardboard, foam squares, wooden pegs, large costume jewelry pearls, plastic caps…

Marina said that she and her colleagues had developed treasure boxes for exploring shadows, with a small flashlight in each one, boxes for exploring reflection and other themed treasure boxes.  She said that she had never seen a child bored or a child who did not know what to do with these loose parts.  She said, “They could do this for hours.”

I asked Marina if she knew Cathy Topal, author of the book, Beautiful Stuff with Lella Gandini.  Also, Beautiful Stuff from Nature and several other books on materials. Marina said that she did not know Cathy.  She does know her books, however, and is inspired by them.  She shared with me that the process of collecting and organizing materials with families was often too much to ask of kindergarten teachers.  She has found that the treasure boxes are an ideal solution. Thoughtfully curated, not too much, just enough and just enough variety of loose parts to get children going…I must say, watching the kindergarten children at PHA, I had to agree.

The treasure box experience is complementary to much of the work that we have been engaged in at PHA.  Teachers have introduced blocks, dramatic play, a message/writing area, and art studio to their classrooms.  These were not present when we began to work with PHA last summer.  Now, the teachers and children are embracing play and integrated learning experiences where children use the reading, writing, and math skills that they are learning, as well as gain confidence as collaborators, thinkers, inventors, designers, and story-tellers. A goal in our work with teachers is that teachers will see their classrooms as treasure boxes.

Introducing dramatic play at PHA

An art studio at PHA

We highly recommend the books of Cathy Topal if you have not read them.  This one is a favorite of mine.  The books on Loose Parts by Miriam Beloglovsky and Lisa Daly, published by Red Leaf Press are also excellent.  And check out the Beautiful Stuff Project.  If you do not live in Boston, we are confident that you could learn from and organize a similar approach through a conversation and perhaps consultation with Marina Seevak. 

Block building at PHA