The Revenge of the Mortal Hand

The joy of writing.

The power of preserving.

Revenge of a mortal hand.

—Wislawa Szymborska

We mostly worked on the play; we stood around the screen with the play lines projected there and read, all gathered up in a semi-circle; we set up the basement stage. A crew of “rats, mice, and squirrels" set up all the switches and cords and lights in the light booth. Other things going on: earths hanging from strings, volcanoes labeled; solar system diagrams; movies, brochures, songs, and advertising jingles on why various places in the Solar System might be Utopian Getaway Vacation Spots. Land roving on Mars? Windsailing on Neptune in 1000 KM winds? In addition, apparently, there is a play being written in the Math Room. I think this has to do with something about characters who play geometrical shapes in a murder mystery thriller. "Clue," Geometrical proofs, and Tennessee Williams all combined.

On Thursday we wrote scraps of poems about what we all might want to find if we parted the gray curtain of the Radley’s house. What would the distant golden glowing light in the recesses of the house be? What would we wan to see in that straining glimpse? What would be in Dolphus Raymond’s paper sack? What would we wish to find or put in the knot-hole of a great live oak? In the center of a candy box, surrounded by soft white cotton, what flower would be resting there? Or in the corner of a littered yar, the six red geraniums: what would those geraniums be for us? What would we extend on our cane fishing pole to the window to give to a hidden person, who might even be ourselves?

We are going to use these in the play somehow or another. In the meantime we read three stories on Friday, and it was pointed out that each of them dealt with loss and change, the response to loss and change, and the inevitable learning that comes from those experiences. We surmised that the only thing we have to hold and keep things that are dear to us that fall away is the telling of the story of them. We tell the story, we write it, we commit it to our own memory in the most vivid and potent form, we place it somewhere where it can be seen and understood by ourselves and others, and then it takes on greater substance. In relation to decay, mortality, and the ravages of time it becomes a monument to what matters most.

I said that at the recent alumni gathering we all came together and mostly all we did was tell old stories of what happened, the big stuff and the little stuff, way back some years ago. We hold onto the stories, and we tell them again and again, because that keeps the things of the stories for disappearing. It was then pointed out by the kids that our writing of stories, of capturing some element of time in a box or in pages, of recreating someone’s life or character in a story, is what Wislawa Szymborska wrote about when she said that writing is “the revenge of a mortal hand.” Our hands are mortal, but what we make with our hands is not.

But They've Left Us a Bit of Music

“The plot is simple: two friends under a sycamore tree, thinking about where they are going and how to get there.”

—Walker Allen, NBS .06

We read two stories, both about war and friendship. The two stories were by each of the combatants in the friendship war. Both of the boys wanted to be friends. Both boys tried to be friends, but somehow missed their chances for solidifying their connection. Both boys, without understanding why, found themselves and their actions being dictated by inner insecurities, fears, and anxieties. Both boys saw in the other strange reflections of their own weaknesses, and perceived each action and response from the other as direct criticism and aggression. In order to protect from the aggression, in order to preserve some sense of “safety,” each of the boys put up barriers to the other from which they launched grenades, which, if they had somehow been able to decipher truly, would have carried messages which read, “I still want to be friends, and I am willing to fight for it.”

In the end both boys found a way to remove the barriers, to seek a path to the golden glow of friendship. They both found the relief in unfolding the fist, the pride in finally creating the thing they had wanted all along. “Two dark islands, with the golden sun setting between them;" the ability to say, “I know he is my friend, and I am proud to say it.”

It reminded me of Blake’s poem, “The Poison Tree,” which begins with the idea that negative feelings, once expressed, will diminish. Feelings of anger that go unexpressed eventually become internalized, where they intensify and deepen.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe;

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

The purpose of the writing of autobiographical narrative, of the purpose behind scrutinizing social relationships at this age, of spending some much time on it, is that the kids are beginning to learn how to move forward into what is difficult and to not shy from it. They are learning what a story is, how to tell it, and they are deciding what characters they are going to be. As is written on our school gavel, in a poem that Walker Allen wrote about Of Mice and Men, “The plot is simple: two friends under a sycamore tree, thinking about where they are going and how to get there.” It’s not enough, as in the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, to only talk about the rumors of what is inside the Radley house. It’s not enough to only go up and slap the side of the house, as if that was somehow a brave excursion into the soul of another story or person.

As Scout and Jem learn, understanding, compassion and ultimately freedom derive from being willing to go inside, to get inside the skin, to move past walls of fear that bookend our lives. As Jem and Scout discover, there are knot-hole openings in the world into which we must pass if we want to see. Otherwise we all end up behind our own closed doors. But in the stories, when two boys begin to talk to each other and begin to see that loving each other is all they ever wanted, whole other worlds begin to open up.

There was skiing going on after school. There was a clean-up election and new clean-up checkers chosen. We wrote 9000 words on the play together. We worked through the middle chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. We began writing Ye Olde Middle of the year Self-Evaluations, new story ideas and mandalas. We worked on stained glass and pizzas in the oven. We discussed relationships between boys and girls, the earthquake in Haiti, and how to engage in literature class instead of being passive. Rose packed four trash cans full of saw-dust, sticks, manure, fertilizer and copper shards in order to make a saw-dust firing for our clay objects. The trashcans were set up in the snowy field in perfect alignment with the four directions. The Ninths Grade boys were given the task of pyro-maniacally lighting the fires, but since Nathan was absent Bryn was duly deputized as a Ninety boy and got to light the fourth can. Rose read an Ethiopian folktale about truth and untruth on a journey to the mountain, and Hannah and Isabel did a dance in the softening snow, and we set it ablaze.

Bryn gave her project on The Dust Bowl, The Great Depression, The Crash, Westward Movement, Woody Guthrie, Herbert Hoover, FDR, WPA; Hoover-Villes, Dorothea Lange; Eleanor Roosevelt, the New Deal, CCC, FSA, FDA, NYA, SEC, SS, Migrant workers, “okies”, Woody Guthrie’s guitar—“this machine kills fascists.” The wheat region of Kansas and OK as “paradise”—“heaven on earth” “–the Great Plowing.” Disruption of natural and native growth cycles, Black Sunday, the paradise of California, the lure of the Orange, the burning of food, Weedpatch Camp, The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, a million people hungry. She played us “Big Rock Candy Mountain” and “Pastures of Plenty” by Woody Guthrie. The she gave us a single boiled potato at the end of class to give us the feeling of what it was like to be a hungry migrant worker. We did not have breakfast, so we were very hungry. Before she let us have our boiled potato she showed us some oranges, sliced and juicy. When members of the class asked her if they could have some, she would not let us, as it was true that the oranges were beyond the reach of the migrants and the hungry migrant farmers of California has to eat boiled potatoes while acres and tons of oranges burned. This made us feel angry and wrathful towards Bryn, who represented the Big Farm growers, as she as taught us tons about an important time in history.

Miles presented Wolves in the second installment of his project on elements of Utopia and Dystopia in Animal Communities—(before he did Bees, next to come is Meerkats and Whales). He told us about social hierarchies in wolf packs and Alpha and Omega wolves. The omega wolf is the one beaten on so that the aggressions of the pack are channeled away from the pack tearing itself up and only focusing on Omega. A comment was made that this was similar to how the Nazis chose "Omega" groups to focus their hatred and aggression on (against Jews and other groups in their communities ) as a way of organizing and solidifying their own group feeling. He told us about communication by and between wolves: howling, barking, and growling, through body language of ears, lips, eyes, tail, and stance, and fur movements. Essentially they show emotions this way. He showed us videos of how wolves work together to hunt, and how caribou feed the wolves while the wolves thin out weaker caribou—a kind of caribou eugenics inflicted by the wolves. He told us wolves do not waste, they eat everything, working in teams to find weak prey. They like it when prey is on the run and they back down if prey takes a stand against them. They also play with Ravens, and work symbiotically with ravens to locate food and provide it for the birds.

Then Miles asked us: So how are they Utopian (or dystopian)? We answered: They strategize and work together, respectful of boundaries and each other; body language is respected and understood, actions are based of direct and accurate observation of the other being. They have a clear understanding of each other, and directly communicate. They mourn the dead, and care about the pack. They like to play, in peaceful interaction with other animals such as crows. They don’t kill each other, or waste their own species without purpose, whereas we will kill each other out of anger (see earlier part of this article about the two boys!)

Isabel read Ahkmatova: “I taught myself to live simply and wisely,/to look at the sky and pray to God,/and to wander long before evening/to tire my superfluous worries.” Cassie read a poem by Bukowski, part of which is follows.

But they’ve left is a bit of music

And a spiked show in the corner,

A jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,

A small volume of Rimbaud,

Horse running as if the devil were

Twisting his tail

Over bluegrass and screaming, and then,

Love again

Like a streetcar turning the corner

On time...

Each week we try to live well and consider what it is that we have before us. Power chords. Soft snow. Longer light, reddish and gold, in evening. Lavender shadows on the field. A soft voice finally reading a poem. A nuthatch hopping headfirst down the tree. Two guitars chiming a blues. There are so many things, and we are keeping our eyes open to all of it.

The Merry Disorder of Young Consciousness

"...the merry disorder of young consciousness."

—New York Times

The above quotation is a description of a Belgian theater troupe comprised of young adolescents. It’s an apt term for what we are trying to do these days at the North Branch School.

It is particularly apropos because we are attempting to transform ourselves into theater troupe as we write our play. Normally we are autobiographical narrative writers, literary deconstructionists, or astronomical observers, or bread-bakers, or Utopian theorists, or poem-intoners, or geometers, or volcanic geologists.

Now, utilizing the miraculous powers of the merry disorder of young consciousness, we are creating a dramatic and comically serious version of ourselves. I need to say that this is mind-bendingly difficult. As far as the teaching arts go, having a class of students write something together which accurately reflects some important and personal truths, to have them do this in a general state of collaborative joy and assent, to have them say something together and something about each of themselves—that is a feat of teaching that requires singular genius.

When I say genius, I mean more than just originality, creativity, or intelligence. I mean the kind of “genius associated with achievement of insight which has transformational power,” according to Wikipedia, that "fundamentally alters the expectations of its audience. Genius may be generalized, or be particular to a discrete field such as sports, literature, art, or science."

Our work of genius will be a work of art and laughter. There are ten thousand decisions to make, energies to direct, voices to moderate, ideas to bring forth. Our noble intention is first to achieve insight into ourselves, for ourselves: insight about our ways of working, who we have been and who we are becoming. Second, we want to do it well enough that it can fundamentally alter the expectations of the audience in a way that makes the audience have more respect forthe power and abilities of a merry, disordered band of young adolescents.

I am not saying that I am a genius, but I am the animating force. Let us just say that I am the one that pulls the string on the spinning top, and, therefore, the one who releases the initial motion. But the blur of color the top makes, where it goes, the frictions it encounters or avoids, how wildly it spins or wobbles is also as much a function of the mass and make-up of the kids. The top, the class, is its own full spinning and tilting orb throwing off merry disorder like the arms of some wild hormonal nebula of the Green Mountain Galaxy. What we make, then, is an as yet unknowable motion that will track its own path, form its own luminous patterns, something spectacular enough that we will want observe and study it and gaze on it for time to come.

Part of the joy of the play is that the kids know that this is what we are doing, what they are being given to do. Perhaps it is the same glee a small child feels in having a trusted adult toss them up in the air, only to be caught again. They know I am winding them up and letting them go.

They know they are making some kind of cosmic true expression of the dimensions of their minds. That joy is elemental source that keeps them saying, “When are we going to work on the play?!” and “Can we work on the play?!” It is the same as, “Will you toss me up and let me go?”

I want them to feel this feeling and to want to be wild and free and then express that free wildness. It should be obvious, though, that this dynamic is also going to lead us into provocative, difficult, and complex territory. After all, we are dealing with forces of nature, growing beings, chemical reactions, magmatic ideas, identity in formation. Still, I have to say to them: “Say anything.” I say that because I trust that no matter what comes out first, there is always something good behind it. I say this knowing that they will probably say some “wrong” things. We end up with a messy mass of material. Invariably the first part to come out is shallow and comical; next to come is more serious, meditative, philosophical. From our mistakes, miss-sayings or wrong-doings we make sift and adjustments and alterations. The learning happens in the tension between the wild, gay abandon and that focused, technical crafting and final shaping.

Right now all the characters are coming out and being formed, it is crazy and wild and we have to let everything come out. We have to see what we have and what we are and what we are all willing to work with. There are all types of kids who will try or want to do all types of things, try anything, push the proverbial universal envelope. We are "playing,” (as in a play) like little kids playing (in a sandbox) and we will do some things "over the top” and then have to decide how to do it right, like learning to understand the rules, pull back or go further. We all have to trust each other to know that we will make something that is valuable, first to us, and then perhaps to the audience.

Schopenhauer said, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” We are attempting to hit the target only we have seen. That target—that glowing mandala that we hover around or pour ourselves into everyday is a composite of all that we have felt, observed, heard, laughed, talked, cried and written about—finds its apotheosis in the play. Our target, the one we aim to show, the one we aim to hit—a theatrical, dynamic, poetic, comical and visual expression of the year’s collective soul. There are 27 souls involved, so there will be many shots toward the target. Sometimes we will miss, it is always messy and still forming. We have eighty days for it to grow and bloom.

***

NBS Alums Doug Woos, Head lecturer, and assistant Tim Woos, computer operator and astro-photographer, came to give us a talk about astronomy: Doug presented on the concept of time and relative distance in the universe, the gas-make-up of Jupiter, the Greek names of stars, how elements emit light differently, star-life cycles and kinds of stars, the origins of star names (Greek names, COOL; 17^th century European names, LAME); the elements in stars; nebula, galaxies (and whether they “feed” off each other or if they are “hungry," black holes and worm-holes, the construction of telescopes, and much more. Doug reminded us that there are four forces at work in the universe, “Five, if you’re like Tal, and you think love is one of the animating forces.” We were left wondering if the most fascinating part of this is the observable, knowable, measurable stuff, or the philosophical ramifications of the things we don’t know.