Education as Soul Force
You and I were born as questions posed by Soul to the Earth community: What can this one contribute? What will this one learn?
In my last post, I shared Bill Plotkin's insight that a big problem with contemporary society is that we have few true Adults and Elders who can guide the young in what he calls "the journey of soul initiation," that is, finding out their true calling in life.
Education, our primary social institution for guiding the young, remains stuck in an adolescent pattern of ego-driven competitiveness with the shallow goal of making money in order to indulge one's lust for pleasure.
By and large, young people submit themselves to the educational process as if it were a factory line; they enter as "raw material" and come out "value-added," with a degree that will enable them to get the job that will support their desired lifestyle.
Given the realities of Western society, this model of education is pragmatic. No job, no money, no life. The fear of poverty stalks everyone in capitalist society—that fear is the whip that cracks over our heads, keeping us trudging into work every day.
But humans know instinctively that there is more to life than moneymaking and individual pleasure. We know that each of us is born to experience and share joy.
Plotkin's journey of soul initiation is a journey for adults who seek to unlearn what we were taught about how to function in the world, in order to rediscover the creative joy that came naturally to us as little children.
Just like no one has to teach a beaver how to build a dam, humans are born knowing how to learn, how to be creative, how to play, how to laugh. This is because each of us is a growing tip of the universe, which is Joy made manifest.
We humans are here to celebrate and to amplify that joy. Not in a wanton, hedonistic self-indulgent way, but as if we were each singing a joyful tune, contributing to an exultant symphony bringing more and more joy into the world.
That’s our Soul purpose.
That’s who we are, and if we understand this, then we are taking steps towards becoming the kinds of "true Adults," in Plotkin's terms, who can help others understand this too.
Such true Adults—teachers who cheerfully encourage bold exploration and the delights of creative discovery—can be recognized by the smiles on their faces and the light in their eyes.
That light, that joy, is Soul made manifest—the sign that a person is living not just from their mind, but also from their heart, from their deep inner connection to the Soul force that animates all life.
We have been trained by Western science and religion to think of ourselves as individuals, living single, independent lives. But the truth is that each human body is a walking community embedded in both an interdependent ecological system and an infinite spiritual tapestry of interwoven lives, which go beyond the physical into the great timeless multiverse of which we are each a part.
Even Bill Plotkin falls into the common trap of imagining a separation between the physical realm of planetary ecology and the nonphysical realm of psyche and spirit, when he defines Soul as "a person or thing’s unique, innate niche in the Earth community." For me," he says, "Soul is an ecological concept, not a psychological one, and not a spiritual or religious one."
Yes, the soul is ecological, but it is also psychological and spiritual. Soul forms the bridge between the nonphysical and the physical realms. Each physical incarnation we see on Earth represents the growing edge of the vast multiform Soul out of which our universe emerged.
Soul is the psychic, nonphysical substrate that nourishes the roots of all we can see and everything we know in our conscious waking hours. It's the deeper realm that we visit each night in our dreams. There is a reason that we quickly go insane and die when we are deprived of sleep: we literally cannot survive without regular restorative returns to our Soul source.
You and I were born as questions posed by Soul to the Earth community: What can this one contribute? What will this one learn?
Photo by Alan Fitzsimmons; Creative Commons license.
It's a tragedy that rather than helping us understand how our lives can respond to these questions, our educational systems are designed to separate us from our innate connection to Soul.
Imagine how everything would change if teachers imagined their role as helping young people keep their imaginative channels open, so that more of the flourishing, joyful creativity of the universe could flow into this world.
Imagine the great creative leap we might take as a species, if more of us were living in conscious awareness of our Soul purpose.
Imagine it—and then make it so, one breath, one thought, one open-hearted smile at a time.
manyt nods and yes' from me - love the aligned thinking here to my writing on Living Systems. I was speaking just the other day to someone around this very fact of 'initiation' almost driven away from all that we way to a mass produced carbon copy of everything other than that
I love your cosmology! “Each of us is a growing tip of the universe.” Brilliantly said! And I appreciate you mentioning that sleep is a reconnection with deep sources. So few people seem to realize the importance of that!
My take on “joy” is slightly different than yours, I think. I’m wary of linking joy to happiness. The individual experience in the manifested world includes both joy and woe, pleasure and pain, glory and misery. One characteristic of the Adult is that they are prepared to embrace both polarities.
That doesn’t conflict with your main point, which is, I think, that educators must stop imposing a limited view on children, and instead open their eyes to the opportunity of participating in this majestic experience. Thank you!