Developing Mindsight

 My entire life has been a personal experience of mindsight offering a higher degree of freedom.Professionally, I have lived my life as and English teacher in all the traditional and non-traditional ways of being so...I consider myself a teacher of stories - the progress of humanity lies in the ability to listen and read and capture the meaning of other people's stories, so that we grow in not only strength but in wisdom...I of course, taught the Western traditional "canon" for my students, but on a parallel track I studied and brought into my teachings the other creation mythologies of other cultures, which of course, led me to Joseph Campbell and his theory of the collective human subconscious mind.  I taught the Renaissance "balance of human spirit" concept, which was taken from Aristotle and Plato in the ancient Greek philosophies:  that (wo)man is possessed of 4 humours: spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual.  Greek Tragedy is based on the tragic flaw, which overpowers the human being, if not kept healthy.  Dan Siefel's article, theory, truth...whatever one  might call it, has been true through the ages.  It sickens me that our human societies "forgot" the need to keep our spiritual side strong and healthy as it feeds the other 3 - there is a balance.  This mindfulness was captured and used by the power brokers on this planet and is still being brokered for dominance.  Louise Erdich's new book LaRose, she narrates about the  indigenous nation of Anishinaabeg, which claims the Great Lakes as its cultural home.  The famiy storyteller, "...This ability to fly went back to the first LaRose, whose mother....&  who had learned this from her father, a jiiskikid conjurer, who'd flung his spirit all the way around the world in 1798 and come back to tell his astonished drummers that it was no use, white people covered the earth like lice."   The power brokers have pasted religion, taboos, sins, & sanctions on so much of what we now call "reality."  My conclusion, at least for today at this moment, is that we all must empower our degrees of mindfulness, allowing ourselves to practice a belief in a higher power if that serves, but always concentrating on this circle of compassion, which allows us to "embrace the reality of this interconnection, being considerate and concerned withlthe larger world."  

 Thank you, Kate.  I am off to read Louise Erdich's LaRose.  Concentrating of this circle of compassion, as you have phrased it, is more pertinent and crucial than ever--right now.  Thank you again.  My education, formal and informal, has followed a path similar to yours.  With similar conclusions.