Year 4: Part 5: Post 2: Fall Semester

The fall semester’s classes have begun. Or, I supposed I should say “fall quarter,” as there are four of them, or even “quintal,” as there are five parts to the academic year, counting the spring before classes start, but we usually say semester.

Anyway, I have two classes, Healer’s Health, and Geology and History. The former is one of Allen’s. It’s about all the things that often go wrong with the mental health of people in the “helping professions,” like burn-out and codependency, and how to avoid them, recognize them, and do something about them. I never really thought of myself as headed for a “helping profession,” but I needed the credit, and, as Allen has explained, my ability to listen to people is very much something that other people could come to rely on. In one way or another, we’re all becoming priests or priestesses, and we all have to confront and prepare for the vulnerability that involves.

The other class actually focuses less on history the way we normally talk about it (though supposedly they’ll be some of that, too) and more on geology as a kind of history. It’s mostly a close look on the geologic history of our immediate area, how our mountains and valleys and soils and everything were formed. I won’t get into the details of what we’re learning as it would give away where we are. It’s taught by an ally.

Each class has met once so far. The rest of the week I’m either working off campus or I’m working for Charlie’s horticultural team.

The thing is, these are my last two classes as an undergrad—maybe my last two classes here, depending on if and when I return as a candidate. And I have to say they’re anticlimactic, especially the one about geology. I mean, geology is interesting and everything, but it’s not like I’m spending my last semester here hunting horcruxes like Harry Potter.

My first semester here was definitely organized as an introduction. I think all of my classes, at least most of them, actually had “Intro” in their titles. Everybody in those classes was new, and everything was calculated to draw us in, to welcome and induct us, into the school. Now? These just happen to be the classes I’m taking this semester. Most of my classmates aren’t graduating with me. There’s no conclusion.

We do have the Graduating Novice Meetings every month. At the beginning of the year they said they’d give us information this way, but they really haven’t told us much. Instead, they usually ask if anybody has any questions or concerns, we talk about whatever comes up for a few minutes, and then we just all chat for the rest of the time. But it’s been interesting to meet as a group every month, all 34 of us, to really get a sense that we’re all in this together, almost like a team. And it’s an acknowledgement. It’s like, yeah, this year is different for us and, yeah, we are different than the other students and, yes, it’s really happening—we’re going to leave this place soon.

That acknowledgment helps it seem a lot less weird.

Year 4: Part 2: Post 7: Seasons of Change

Every year I talk about how spring seems to always be just now arriving, from the first blooming of trees in March to the full greening of campus late in April or early May. I keep thinking "ok, now it's spring." And then the next week something else sprouts or blooms and I think it again.

I've noticed the same thing with how Aidan is growing. It seems like for years now he's been just starting to talk.

He said his first words when he was just over a year old, though I didn't actually hear him talk until months later. Then, when he was around two, he started using a lot more words, a lot more complex sentences, so it seemed like he had really started to talk. I think I posted about it. Now, he's just past three, and he's really talking, using more or less complete grammar and mostly correct pronunciation (except he still says "gweens" and "aminals" and such things).

Not that he talks often. He's kind of a quiet boy.

I don't babysit him much, but I understand that watching him is getting both easier and harder. Easier because he can follow rules and instructions and some sense of judgment, so you can tell him "stay where I can see you" and he will. Harder because he's also able to make innocent  mistakes or to disobey, so when he gets in trouble he can get in trouble seriously. And one minute he seems to know everything and be able to do everything, so you let him do things, and then the next minute he's obviously a toddler again.

All this, too, is a process that has been unfolding since he learned how to crawl.

Kayla hardly ever babysits him these days. She's busy being a student and being a teenager, and since he's been weaned completely for about a year now, there are whole days that go by when she hardly sees him. That's ok--the idea was always for Sadie to raise him.

During the day, Sadie is usually in the kitchens or off-campus at this restaurant she's started. He can't really go with her, so he gets passed around the various masters. Sometimes he'll even turn up in class and sit quietly in the back, coloring.

Actually, this past week we were talking about the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., in class--the anniversary of his death was April 4th--and Aidan jumped into the conversation.

"He didn't get killed because he was black," the child asserted. "He got killed because he was nice to all the people and mean people are scared of nice people so the mean people killed him."

Greg looked a bit startled, but recovered himself.

"Interesting point, Aidan," he said, speaking as he might to any other student. "Do you care to elaborate?"

Aidan put down his crayons and spoke up.

"A lot of people think Martin Lufer King was killed because he was black and because he was nice to black people on buses and stuff. But he was nice to white people and pink people and green people and purple people, too. Like, if they didn't have any money he would help them get money and if people were mean to them and told them to take out the garbage all the time he would say 'no, you have to be nice!' And that is why mean people killed him. Because sometimes mean people just want to be mean, so if you tell them not to be mean they kill you or put you in jail. So that's why it's important to be brave and nice, not just nice all by itself."

And he picked up his crayon again and went back to coloring.

"You are right, for the most part," said Greg. "Where did you learn all that?"

"I don't know. It might have been Steve Bees or somebody like that."

Steve is in American History of Dissent, of course, and he shrugged helplessly and looked completely dumbfounded. Aidan seemed completely unaware he'd said anything extraordinary. His drawing just looked like multicolored scribbles, no hint of a recognizable image at all.

The boy is starting to talk, but the thing is he hears everything and remembers most of it.

Year 4: Part 2: Post 4: A Deer Class

Remember a while back, that deer anatomy seminar with Charlie? We dissected two deer? Well, a couple of weeks ago I bumped into Charlie carrying the bones across campus in boxes--he has this wire mesh cage he uses to let bones rot clean without larger animals being able to steal them, and he'd cleaned both deer. He uses bone for a lot of his artwork.

I asked him, conversationally, if he had plans for these bones and he said not at the moment. I thought a little about the bones being like a puzzle, and then I got an idea. I asked if I could borrow the bones, and he said yes.

My idea was to do a seminar--that is, a mini-course with two meetings--around assembling the skeletons. Actually, my idea was to do the seminar with Rick, since he and I have done things like that before, mostly the tracking workshops, but Rick isn't here. So, I figured why not do it myself? So I talked to Charlie and Sharon about it.

I forget if I've mentioned, but anyone can teach anything here--whether any students show up to learn is another matter. Also, there's no guarantee the masters will decide something a student teaches carries credit. In my case, Charlie usually speaks up for me and my mini-courses do carry a little credit. And a few students usually do show up.

Now that classes have started up, there are many fewer workshops and seminars and things--there's no rule against scheduling something in competition with a full class, but hardly anyone would be available to show up. But we do have optional class blocks in the evening and on Saturday, and sometimes there are events then.

What I did was I brought all the bones into the barn in their boxes and then laid them out on a blue tarp, with the two skeletons mixed together. I insisted participants wear fitted clothing (not school uniforms, with their wide-ish sleeves, that they were comfortable getting dirty, and I gave everyone nitrile gloves to wear--even cleaned, pathogens could still cling to the bones. Then I challenged the participants (there were eight of them, mostly yearlings) to reassemble the skeletons and I let them go.

I stood around, answering some questions but not others, making occasional suggestions, and providing food for thought, now and then. Or, trying to, anyway. They did well, organizing themselves around an initial sorting process without my help, and got the bones sorted into two animals and all the major functional groups. Then they got stuck. There were bones they could not sort, some they sorted wrong, and they were unclear how most of the bones within each category fit together. That was ok. We brain-stormed about how they might go about getting farther along, what kinds of resources they might use to learn deer skeletal anatomy, and then I assigned homework and let them go.

The homework was a kind of manual I'd put together with the help of a Xerox machine in town explaining what all of the bones were and how they fit together.

When we met again, they were all better informed and had their manuals with them and so the assembly went much better, as expected. I'd unsorted their bones, which bothered some of them but couldn't be helped (I could hardly leave them spread out all over the barn!) and it didn't take long to get the bones re-sorted. I again answered questions, but this time I also made occasional corrections if I saw people persistently getting something wrong. They got the bones all in the proper order (we didn't glue or wire them, just laid them down next to each other) by the end of the class.

I didn't have them try without instruction first in order to make them feel bad--and I tried to be clear about that--but so that when they finally got the information, they'd be looking for it. They'd know the significance of the answers because they were already asking the questions.

When I turned in my evals to Sharon--basically I just have to affirm that everybody passed, it's a required formality if your event carries credit--she asked how it went. I said it had gone ok, and then I said something about really feeling like a senior student now, or enjoying getting more involved in my final year, I forget my exact wording.

"You're not really acting like a senior student," she told me, smiling. "You're acting like a candidate."

Year 4: Part 2: Post 3: Learning Oppotrunities

Note; in 2003, when this narrative is set, Easter occurred in late April. Sometimes I play around with timing to make holiday posts match up better--indeed, Ostar was on the 21st that year, on a Friday--but this difference is just too big. So I'm going to write my Easter post in April and just mention Easter in the narrative today.

Classes have started. It feels a little odd for me to have homework again and everything, because I haven't had classes since last Summer, but I'm sure I'll get used to it pretty quickly.

I have three courses this semester, plus horticulture, and I work off-campus on Mondays--so, that's only ten hours a week, but maybe I'll manage more later in the season, and I've put in a bunch of hours the last few weeks, mostly cleaning and repairing things at the shop and cleaning out and re-mulching customer beds, so I have some money in the bank already for the year.

So, Tuesday afternoons I have Energy, Ethics, and Honor, with Karen. We've met once so far, and it's one of the few classes I've taken here that is directly focused on the "impossible" kind of magic. Basically, it's about the part of martial arts that isn't fighting--it's healing, energy manipulation, and how to live, what to do.

The healing part is Reiki, which I'm already taking outside of the regular class blocks with Joy, but Karen says she'll touch on it here, for students who haven't explored it yet. It will be interesting to see Reiki from a different perspective.

The other aspect of "energy" is more about perception and intuition. Like, this week we were visualizing balls of energy and passing them around to each other. We also moved through crowds with our eyes closed--that was fun. There are ten of us in the class, plus Karen, and we took turns being "It." The "it" person would be blindfolded and then would walk through the martial arts studio where we have the class--except the other students would be spread out through the room, standing silently. The challenge was to not bump into anybody, and the thing is, none of us did bump into anyone. When I did it, it was weird, but right when I got close to someone I'd feel a kind of tingling tension in their direction and I'd know to turn away. Even weirder, I thought I knew who some of them were. It was like I could see them. The whole thing made me think of Ebony.

The other thing we'll do is talk about ethics and proper behavior. We haven't done much of that, yet, because it depends on homework--we'll read stories about people making various choices and then we'll talk about our readings and our own experiences in class--and then spend the balance of class time doing the energy exercises. It sounds, so far, like two different classes, but I imagine they'll merge at some point.

On Thursday afternoons I'm taking Sacred Threads: American Religious History, with Greg. The idea of "threads" is part of the structure of the class in that we're going to be exploring a lot of different histories of different religions, sects, and religious movements, and compiling them all into the same timeline so we can see how each thread interacts with the others. The one class meeting we had so far was mostly introduction, talking about the various assignments and so forth, but Greg did have us talk about what we knew about American religious history--which wasn't much, which I guess was the point. As is the case for a lot of Greg's classes, we're doing a lot of reading for homework and then mostly using class time for discussion. Should be interesting.

My third class, on Friday afternoons, is also with Greg--American History of Dissent. It's going to focus on labor, civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, and similar groups, plus right-wing movements, and even hate groups. We did have homework before the first day of class, which is unusual but not unheard of around here--we had to read the novel, Storming Heaven, by Denise Giardina, which I did not at all mind doing. We won't be using fiction very much, Greg says, and we're not starting with the unionization of coal mining, which is what the book is about. We're starting, not surprisingly, with the American Revolution. Greg figured we all knew the basics of it so we could discuss it without any particular preparation, and he was right. But he wanted to use the book to set the mood--and maybe establish that some aspects of this class are going to be fun, despite the heavy subject matter. I mean, the book is pretty heavy, but it's an easy read, and using fiction to teach history is a little light-hearted.


Not surprisingly, Steve Bees is taking both of those classes with Greg, too--he takes most things Greg teaches, and of course is interested in both political dissent and religion. On the way out of class on Friday I conversationally asked him what he's planning to do for Easter.

"Now, there's another dissenter," he said.

"Huh?"

"Jesus."

"Oh, of course."

"That part kind of gets lost."

"Not here it doesn't," I told him.

"I guess not."

"Of course it doesn't. Now that Andy and Ollie are gone, you're the most vocal Christian on campus. The most vocally Christian one, anyway." Almost a fifth of the student body is Christian, but most of them are pretty casual about it and they're here to study things that don't quite fit within standard Christianity. They're like me, I guess. Steve is one of the few who is really into the religion, instead of treating it as background.

"I guess I am," he said, but he was smiling. Unlike Andy and Ollie, Steve is perfectly comfortable with paganism.

“So, what are you doing for Easter?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m thinking of staying here.”

“Really? Not going to be with your girlfriend or seeing family?”

“My family is in Ohio, my girlfriend hasn’t invited me yet, and anyway, you guys are like my family. I’m trying to think about where I’ll be most useful, and I’m thinking it’s here. We’re a minority, as you said. We have to stick up for each other.”

I should explain, in case you don’t remember, that we don’t get an Easter break. If your parents live too far away for a weekend visit to make sense, you’re kind of stuck.

I made some kind of acknowledging noise. We were standing just inside the door of Chapel Hall—the weather was really windy outside and raw so we didn’t want to go out right away. We wouldn’t be able to talk out there, for one thing.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you going or staying?”

“Going, I think. My Dad might disown me otherwise.” I saw Steve’s face and amended myself quickly. “I don’t mean literally, but I think he’d be upset, maybe hurt. And there’s the rest of my family. I don’t see them often enough.”

“Well, you’d better go then. Too bad, though, we could use you here."

Year 3: Eighth Interlude

This is my last of the non-narrative posts for this batch. Next week I'll post on Brigid as my twenty-two-year-old self, making this the Interlude, more or less. Really, all of January has been an interlude.

In my narrative, I talk about the classes I take, but I seldom mention the classes other people take, let alone the variety of workshops and classes available. Since I naturally focused on those classes and events that suited my interests and credit requirements, I worry that I've given a somewhat lopsided view of the school, focused disproportionately on science, when actually science was something of a sideline for most people.

I don't have a record of every single class, workshop, and talk offered during the four years I was a novice, but I've been able to cobble together a list of most of them. I've asked around, and this list is pretty representative of the variety that most of us can remember from that period--in more recent years, the curriculum was slightly different.

I am leaving out the few classes and events specifically aimed at candidates, since we novices were hardly aware of them at the time.

Allen

Classes
 
Dark Waters (a psychopathology survey course)
Intro to Psychology
Gender Studies (team taught with Kit)
Tricks of the Trade (stage magic)
Psychology of Magic
Lies, Statistics, and Illusions
Healer's Health (self-care for clergy)

Extra-curriculars and mini-classes/events

Group Therapy (weekly)
Philosopher's Stone Soup (weekly)
Stage Magic (workshop for those considering training)
Advanced Stage Magic (workshop restricted to those already in training)
Juggling (introductory workshop)
Playing (workshop on the Island--does consist of fun)

Charlie

Classes

Intro to Ecology
Science Literature (how to find and understand professional science papers) 
Messing Around Outdoors
Literature of the Land (reading nature writing)
Creating Campus (wildlife-friendly landscaping)
Environmentalism for Dummies

Extra-curriculars and mini-classes/events

Dead Poet's Society (weekly)
Paleolithic Dinner (weekly)
Horticulture Training (weekly)
Chainsaw Safety and Maintenance (workshop)
Axe Work and Sharpening (workshop)
Tracking (introductory workshop)
Tracking Spring (botany/plant ecology workshop)
Inside a Woodchuck (workshop--dissecting woodchucks)
Tanning and Leatherwork (workshop)
Art and Craft of Woodwork (workshop)
Art and Craft of Bone and Antler (workshop)
Natural History of the Island (workshop) 

Greg

Classes

American Minority Perspectives
Intro to History
Sacred Threads: American Religious History
American History of Dissent
World History: Africa
World History: The Americas
World History: Asia
World History: India
Intro to Buddhism
The Art of Listening and Love

Extra-curriculars and Mini-classes/Events

Zazen Meditation (daily)
Alchemy (monthly, if students show strong interest)
American History Talks (in observance of days of historical importance, such as Pearl Harbor Day)
Islamic History Talks (lots of these after 9/11)
Other Talks (mostly on religious history and Buddhism)


Joy 

Classes

Beginning Horsemanship
Advanced Beginner Horsemanship
Healing Horsemanship (helping horses with physical and behavioral problems)

Extra-curriculars and Mini classes/Events

Reiki Workshop (weekly)
Manifestation Workshop (monthly)
Animals in Service (talk)
History of Animal Labor (workshop on the Island)
That Good Night (workshop on veterinary end of life issues)
Veterinary First Aid (workshop)
Veterinary Nursing Care (workshop)
Bedside Manner/Working with a Patient's family (workshop)
Magic Talks (topics include pendulum use, visualization, astral projection and perception, animal communication)

Karen 

Classes

Personal Safety and Fitness
Sword
Intermediate Martial Arts
Energy, Ethics, and Honor (includes martial arts-related occult skills)
Advanced Martial Arts and Healing
Sword and Empty Hand Sparring
Reiki
Zen Flower Arrangement


Extra-curricular and Mini classes/Events

Calisthenics (daily)
Zazen on the Island (workshop)
Advanced Flower Arrangement (workshop)
Advanced Reiki (workshop)
History of Asian Martial Arts (seminar)
Buddhism in America (seminar)
Zen and Art (seminar)
Women in Buddhism (seminar)

Kit 

Classes

Intro to Sacred Dance
Intro to Wiccan Magic
Intro to Wiccan Ritual and Myth
Gender Studies (team taught with Allen)
Music Theory and Practice
The Spirit of Music (music in magic and spiritual practice)
Herbal Magic and the Allies of the Land
Intro to Anthropology

Extra-curriculars and Mini classes/Events

Thursday Night Jam (weekly musical jam session)
Callalloo (occasional open mike event)
Storyteller's Circle (occasional)
Practical Yoga (daily)
Sacred Dance and Movement (talk)
Island Workshops (workshop)
Teaching Coven (meets for sabbats and esbats)
Tools of the Craft (talk)
Time and Direction in Wicca (talk) 
Magic Talks (topics include trance induction/extraction, dreaming, intention, and visualization)

Other Instructors (allies and student-instructors)

Classes

Recognizing Rocks, Crystals, and Gems (basic minerology plus introductory crystal magic)
Earth and Water (introductory earth science course)
Moving Earth: Geological Processes
Everyday Physics (introduction to Newtonian physics)
Physics and Fiction (exploring physics through speculative fiction)
Einstein and Atom (introduction to Einsteinian and subatomic physics)
Earth Science Literacy (includes climatology)
Weather Magic
Spirit and Magic of Sex (theory only)
Farm Training (taught by Sarah)
Campus Systems (taught by Chuck)
Latin (taught by Charlie but not every year)
Greek (taught by Charlie but not every year)
Spanish (taught by Charlie but not every year)
Hebrew (when there's interest)
Kabbalah Studies (only offered to students fluent in Hebrew)
Aramaic (when there's interest)
Cooking (taught by Sadie)
Advanced Math (taught by Malachai, when there's interest)

Mini-classes

First Aid/CPR
First Responder Certification
Introduction to Bee Keeping (workshop)
Personal Health (workshops, seminars, and talks)
Shearing, Dyeing, and Spinning (workshop)
Weaving (workshop)
Knitting (workshop)
Crochet (workshop)
Biblical History (workshop)
Incense Blending and Aroma Therapy (workshop)
Candle Magic (seminar)
Energy Self-Defense (seminar)
Personal Security (workshop taught by Security Joe)

I could probably go on. I keep remembering more. But that gives you the picture.



   

Year 3: Part 3: Post 9: New Classes

So! Here I am starting classes again!

I remember when I first got here, starting classes each semester was such a big deal--they were all so different from any class I'd had before, and they were all different from each other. Now, I'm into the swing of things. Starting classes every semester is just another part of the rhythm of living here. It's still exciting, though, to see what they have ready for us.

Last year I took four classes in the summer, and ended up with no free time or energy at all, since I had a bunch of extracurricular commitments and assignments from Charlie. This year I got smarter and signed up for only two classes: Herbal Magic and the Allies of the Land, with Kit, and The Art of Listening and Love, with Greg. They've each met once already.

Herbal Magic seems interesting but strange in that, once again, Kit's class is in some ways very much like something Charlie would do, while in other ways it is completely different.

There is a very familiar emphasis on plant identification, local ecology, and open-ended observation--a lot of the material we've covered this first week was review for me,  because she got into how to use field guides, how scientific nomenclature works, what various basic ecological terms mean...technically, most of it is review for everybody, because everything except the ID stuff was covered in Intro to Ecology our first year, but a lot of people don't seem to have been paying very much attention because they've forgotten it already. Kit is making them remember. She takes the scientific approach to understanding these things very seriously, and she's insisting her students do so, too. You want to learn herbal magic? Fine. Learn how to spell Amelanchier properly (it's the genus name of the Juneberry).

But then she talks freely about the devas or geniuses (spirits, either way) of plants and places and promises to teach us how to talk to these beings through "inner journey methods," and I'm thinking all of this would seem like self-indulgent fantasy to Charlie.

I knew the class was going to be like this and I felt kind of self-conscious about it, so I actually said something to him the other week, on the ride back from the Island. He'd asked me, conversationally, what classes I'd signed up for and I told him and said something like "I bet you'd rather I didn't take Kit's class." He shrugged and looked out the window.

"No, I think you're smart enough to figure those things out for yourself," he said.

Which might mean he trusts my judgment in signing up for the class, or it might mean that he trusts me to figure out that it's hooey without his help. But I don't think it's hooey. Or, not necessarily hooey, anyway. I kind of what to know what going on an "inner journey" to try to talk to a plant deva is like. That's why I'm taking the class.

The other one, the one that Greg teaches, should be equally interesting. Technically, it's a psychology elective, just as Kit's is an ecology elective, both subjects being filtered through and focused by the spiritual perspectives of the professor in question. In Greg's case, Buddhism means studying the mind in order to learn to be a more compassionate, loving person--not necessarily a happier person, he is careful to add, for the pursuit of personal happiness is often self-defeating, but he said that becoming more fully loving often involves becoming much happier.

It's strange to think that this man who I used to think of as so severe and withdrawn teaches a course in love--but I already knew that my initial understanding of him was at best incomplete. After all, this is the man who just paid for an expensive intubation procedure followed by an even more expensive surgery for a cat who technically isn't even his--and Greg has no outside income anymore, so he only makes $12,000 a year.

And it is true that he seems very relaxing to talk to--not that he always knows the right thing to respond with, but no matter what you say or do, he's not going to react badly to it. He's not going to get angry or offended of judgmental or distracted. I know people here who describe him as "safe."

He's assigned us a pile of books to start reading, mostly popular psychology books, plus a couple of religious essays, and gave us a writing assignment--a couple of short essay questions.

It's not surprising that he'd be teaching a psychology class; apparently he was the primary psychology teacher for four years before they hired Allen.

Anyway, despite having just the two classes, I think I'll be busy enough. I'm still working off campus 20 hours a week, plus working on campus, plus doing trail work in the mornings, plus attending the occasional yoga class....

I do sleep, now and then.

Year 3: Part 3: Post 2: The Island

I ended up riding up to the Island with Allen's family and now I'm camping with them.

As I've explained, there's a gap of a few weeks between the Beltane and the beginning of the summer semester--for most of us, we use the time to take a couple of workshops. The masters take a few days off and write up the student evaluations for the spring classes. So. But the yearlings spend two weeks of that gap on a certain island in a kind of retreat--they camp as a group and get to know each other. The masters (except for Greg) go to the Island with them and teach a series of workshops there. When not teaching, they're more or less on their own retreat--the masters don't camp with the students.

Anyway, Charlie's workshop includes a couple of educational hikes, but there are too many yearlings to fit manageably into a single hiking group. So Charlie divides the group in half and has an assistant lead the other group. Last year, I trained to be his assistant, and now here I am on the Island in that capacity again.

But I can't camp with the yearlings, because they're supposed to be bonding with each other as a group. And I can't camp with the masters, for the same reason, more or less. I was afraid I'd end up having to camp by myself, but fortunately Allen's family goes up to the Island at the same time and they said I could stay with them. They'll stay on after the retreat is over, so the whole family can have a vacation together and I'll head back to campus with the yearlings.

I got up here a few days ago, talked through the walk with Charlie (he does exactly the same program every year, which does make things easier for me), and hiked the routes myself to see if anything on the trails had changed that I would need to talk about--there wasn't.

Today I did the first of the hikes. I was a lot less nervous this year than last--I've done it before now, of course, and the whole idea of me leading part of a workshop seems less alien. It actually helps that I don't know most of the yearlings. Charlie's told me that there's no problem with teaching your friends--if they're really your friends they'll respect you--but it's a little tricky to maintain both roles and it's easier not to have to deal with that when you get started. Anyway, the other hikes I have to do are tomorrow and the next day.

After that, I don't have anything particular to do. I don't know whether I'll stay the whole time or head back by bus--Charlie has encouraged me to spend some time exploring the island on my own, learning as much as I can, so next year I'll be able to answer questions at more depth. It occurs to me this is a lot of effort to put into an assistant who's only going to be available one more year, but of course I'm still a student--part of the point of all of this is to further my education, as well as that of the yearlings.

You know, I really like it here. I like the sea and I like the mountains. I like the forests and the plants there, which are different than the plants back on campus--I notice things like that now, it makes the entire place seem exotic. I like coming here in the early spring, which is what May is here--the trees haven't broken bud yet, most of them. When I go back to campus, everything will seem explosively lush in comparison.

I don't know, I don't have much else to say. I'm just having a good time.

Year 3: Part 2: Post 8: Food for Thought

The weather’s been lovely lately, warm rains every few days and clear, cool, sunny periods in between.  The grass on the side of the main road has greened up and some of the trees are starting to break bud, though the grass on campus is still brown—it’s mostly native warm-season grasses and they take longer to get going. 

It’s strange, with this warm weather and everything starting to green up, to go into the Dining Hall and find that we’re still eating from the greenhouses and from what we stored last year. Those and the mushrooms—they grow mushrooms in jars and boxes in the Dining Hall basement, maybe four or five different kinds. The mushrooms go year round, of course.

And the thing is, we’re running out of certain foods. I don’t mean we’re in any danger of starving, there’s enough food, and even if there weren’t, there’s room in the budget to buy more if we had to. But the food is starting to get a little boring. 

For example, we had a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables stored in the Dining Hall basement, mostly apples, squash, onions, things that keep. But we must have eaten  almost all of it already, because the only thing in that category I’ve seen in a few weeks is potatoes. The dried fruit is all gone because Sadie found worms of some kind in the last of it last week (grain moth larvae? Maggots?) and made dog food out of it. Yes, the school has three dogs for guarding and herding the sheep and chickens, I forget if I’ve mentioned that.

And, speaking of dogs, two strays from somewhere killed almost half our chickens back in January while the guard dogs all in with the sheep, so eggs are even more tightly rationed now than normal. That will persist until the replacement hens get old enough to lay. 

(In case you’re curious, we’re not raising replacement birds because of the dog attack. Every year, Sarah and her team raise three batches of chicks. When these reach adulthood, they keep however many hens they need to replace those who have died or stopped laying. Sometimes they keep a rooster, since each of the two flocks needs one. We eat the extra, along with any older birds Sarah has culled from the flock for whatever reason. So this spring we might not get to eat any chicken because, thanks to the dogs, there probably won’t be any extra. We don’t know where the dogs came from—Rick tracked them out to the main road and lost the trail on the blacktop).

So, we’re eating a lot of beans and greenhouse kale these days, and a lot of breads made from the flour bought from off campus. It all tastes good, but, like I said, it’s getting boring. And, like I said, it’s strange to be eating from dwindling stores when everything outside is warm and turning green.

I don’t remember noticing this sort of thing my first year, although it may well have been worse, since 1999 was a drought year and I understand we had some crop failure. Then again, maybe the food in spring was better, because I’ve heard we had to buy a lot of off campus food). Either way, I didn’t notice because I was too preoccupied by the strangeness of a local/seasonal diet to really think about the details. Last spring I was preoccupied by getting ready to go to the Island and by a few other things, so if I noticed we were running out of some things I didn’t bother to remember it.

I might not have noticed this year, except I was talking to one of the Ravens about how strange it was to keep eating like it’s winter after things have warmed up and she explained it. She works in the Dining Hall. The issue, of course, is that it takes time for the new season’s food to actually grow. In a few weeks I guess we’ll have asparagus and rhubarb and lettuce.

Meanwhile, classes continue. 

As I’d said before, I’m only taking two classes this semester, Literature of the Land, with Charlie, and Intro to Wiccan Ritual and Myth, with Kit. I’d been a little worried that having those two and only those two as my teachers this semester would be awkward, because they are allergic to each other, but it hasn’t been an issue. Actually, the two classes work together in a really interesting way.

Literature of the Land is a somewhat more organized version of the reading list I took on for Charlie my first full winter—some of the books are even the same, which shouldn’t be a surprise. The main difference is getting to talk about the readings with a group. That, and Charlie directs the discussions more. There are clearly particular points he wants to get across, particular ideas he wants us to have—which some of us seem to find confusing or intimidating, but since I’m entirely used to being confused by Charlie, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t worry about getting it wrong.

The underlying theme, in contrast to some of his other classes, is not so much what the land is (ecology and its various permutations) as how we humans react to it. Of course, part of the class is simply exploring language, which Charlie loves with a passion, but it’s also an inherently self-reflective subject, which at first seemed odd, because Charlie doesn’t exactly encourage self-anything, under most circumstances. I asked him about this one day after class and he said “how do you know you’re not getting in your own way if you don’t know where you are? Scientists begin by recording their methods. The really good ones keep track of their biases as well. We exist, we’re part of the system, our minds are part of the system, therefore, our minds are legitimate objects of study.” 

And, curiously, Kit’s class has the same underlying theme.

I’d kind of thought that her class would be something like a Wiccan equivalent of Sunday school, only without the assumption that all of us should share the same religion. I mean, Kit knows that we’re not all Wiccan, but she is, so I expected to hear about her beliefs. I haven’t. Not exactly.

I should explain that Kit uses the word “myth” a little differently than most people in the outside world do—and of course, most people on campus use the word the way she does, so this isn’t a definition she had to provide in class. But a “myth” is not a misconception. It’s not simply a metaphor, either. 

A myth is a metaphor for something that cannot be accurately and fully expressed in a literal way.

I’m starting to realize that one of the reasons why people around here seldom provide a single, definitive explanation for things is that most of what we’re supposed to be learning cannot be reduced to the literal very well. When I first got here, I appreciated Kit’s willingness to explain the symbolism of various school events and the objects around campus. Joy would explain sometimes, too, though her explanations were usually somewhat different, which I found confusing. The others often would not explain at all—Charlie would growl or change the subject, Greg and Allen would answer questions by asking more questions, and Karen would make short statements that seemed very deep but become nonsensical if you think about them too carefully.

Except occasionally I’d wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly realize how one of Karen’s enigmas made perfect sense after all.

They all still do that, of course, only now I’m starting to get that they’re not just being mysterious for the fun of it but to avoid letting us think we understood issues that we really hadn’t yet. They were leaving room for the mythic. Even Kit’s answers, as clear and detailed as they are, really only provide hints as to the sort of things a symbol might mean. 

So it didn’t confuse any of us that she used the word “myth” to refer to her own class. What did confuse me was how anthropological her approach is to her own religion.

She’s actually explained this point over and over, but I’m only just beginning to get it—the ultimate truth, in her view, is not what might at first seem to be the beliefs of Wicca—the Goddess and the God, the Guardians of the Quarters, the Rule of Three and the Rede (those are basic moral guidelines of Wicca) and so forth. According to Kit, all of those are just working metaphors for something deeper that cannot actually be described directly. They are the set of metaphors she uses, but she insists that any other set could be just as good, provided it works to help a person live well.

Anyway, so she’s using this class to explore Wiccan myth and ritual, what it consists of and how it works. And what it’s more is ultimately to make sense of, and to interconnect, an underlying reality of human psychology, ecology, and an ineffable spiritual dimension Kit ultimately cannot define—all of which are true in a way that transcends religion, the kind of reality that you can trip over if you don’t realize it is there. So, again, how humans relate to the land, as both mediated by and explored through the stories we tell—just like in Charlie’s class.

Kit has a line that she says whenever anyone asks about her beliefs or Wiccan beliefs. She says “belief is unimportant. We know or we do not know—and if we don’t know we can find out.”

And Charlie says exactly the same thing.