Learning (A Kapow of New Wave Inspiration)

This photo was taken on Yonge Street, Toronto and it sums up the spirit of openness, exploration, adventure, creativity and curiosity that should be part of any learning environment or experience. Life is messy. Learning is no different. Why can't the idea of making mistakes be reclaimed as a positive? It should be. How else can we find our learning edges unless we cross them.

To quote the poet John Keats,  “Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.”


Today I have come across two more nuggets of learning inspiration.

The first is by Rob Brezny, an astrologist, who is deftly reading the night sky and interpreting it for our learning pleasure. Rob suggests that the present moment is providing us with an epic drama of extremes and an opportunity to royally let go of the old and make way or birth and create the new. No shades of grey or middle ground here. This is the time to seize the day. Or in Star Wars parlance 'feel the force Luke'! It is the showdown of the shadow vs the dream.

In Rob's own words, " The Collective Shadow of our time is a composite thought form made of the following negative tape loops: We're Running Out of Time, The Rich Take All, Love Can't Happen, Truth Can't Happen, Humanity Cannot Change. In certain parts of the world (like political arenas) this shadow thickens and dominates the psychic space, very hard to shake off, very hard to even see that it's a story. It masquerades as The Way Things Are, rather than as something we constantly tell ourselves is true that squeezes out alternative ideas. When caught in this shadow the undertow is deadly, making more constructive ideas seem hopelessly naive or preposterous.

Standing opposite to Pluto's Shadow is the Jupiterian Dream: whatever bright truth of the soul longs to be born from the deepest part of you, whatever you incarnated to express, whatever cosmic urge drew your soul from spirit into matter. Jupiter's Dream is the Big Dream that your individual dream is a part of. And when Dream opposes Shadow a rigorous initiation is at hand, because this clash of the titans brings on the very challenge that must be faced to coax the fuller scope of the dream out of hiding and make that dream real.

When Jupiter opposes Pluto, the biggest, brightest, most positive vision engages a showdown with the main obstacle in its way. This is like a showdown between Buddha & Genghis Khan. The sheer intensity of the polarisation can ground you deeper into the Dream, or turn you into a wild scourge foaming at the mouth.

When Dream opposes Shadow many deaths and births enter the evolutionary canal. Your vision and motivation are being called up to the plate. Your commitment is central. What sacrifice are you being asked to make to make that dream real? During this month of opposition, when the dust settles you'll either have a galvanised dream or an empty womb space where a new one can be born."

And so to the second nugget that sprung forth from the digital highway today. The discovery of two twin souls traversing the earth in search of stories that re-imagine higher education. Oh my dreams, my dreams are being nourished and inspired in one fell swoop. Udi Mandel and Kelly Teamey call what they have discovered 'Enlivened Learning'. As they state on their website "[it] is taking place in innovative spaces of learning that are emerging outside mainstream universities and colleges. These innovative initiatives are challenging what it means to learn and how knowledge is created. Born from social/ecological movements and indigenous communities, these initiatives are creatively addressing the questions – what is a university for? and what knowledges are important for us to creatively address the challenges we face today?
 
The answers these initiatives provide transforms people and communities through a process we are calling enlivened learning. Individuals learning in these places are connecting with their passion and creativity. They are engaging with community, land, history and culture. The nourishing connections that enlivened learning encourage, offer hope and imagination, offering different possibilities for re-imagining higher education. We feel this is an important and timely story to tell."

Watch the introduction and make up your own mind.

  Enlivened Learning an introduction from Multi-Sense Media on Vimeo.