The power of belief

There is a line in a Curtis Mayfield tune that states ‘educated fools from uneducated schools’, this pretty much sums many current western education systems up for me. Having worked for many years with young people and adults that were somewhat removed from the ‘mainstream’ system, especially in terms of education, I always referred to my clients as ‘spirited’ (especially those who were REALLY ‘off the rails’).

This simple word, as opposed to ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘at risk’ or ‘dis-engaged’ allowed a huge shift in the way that I [and others around me] thought about such clients, importantly from the word go. My style of teaching encompasses the mind, body and spirit and I believe one of THE most powerful tools any educator can employ is the power of BELIEF. To believe that clients have their own capacity for growth [and positive change], when the time is right for them.

This is not to say that I am a guru or live a life of cave dwelling purity, it does mean however that I use my experiences, knowledge and [apparent] wisdom to plant a seed of belief and compassion with people that I choose to interact with. One can gain insight into some of my influences by browsing my blog, Bruce Lee for instance - a huge inspiration to me. My teaching almost the art of 'teaching without teaching', I prefer to view it as 'allowing others to be open to learning'. The age old difference of being a leader who is feared or a leader who is followed...

There is a quote that helps explain this: "If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that."

More on this in future posts...

Be Like Water Media

Hey all, I've been busy working on my BLW Media blog - I trust you'll enjoy the wealth of information on there, from philosophy to surf to ecology to music...

Thanks


BLWM

TED SAID

Great clip from TED. The comments on the TED page are really interesting too!

Be Like Water

Bruce Lee's Taoist words on water...fluid

Stone and bone...

Great site selling all sorts of handcrafted loveliness...

http://www.etsy.com/shop/stoneandbone

Home is where the surf is!

Great short movie!

Home Is Where The Surf Is from Branden Aroyan on Vimeo.

Change is the only constant...

Some folks chat about climate change not being real or about over-exaggerated claims by people who care for the planet.

My thoughts on this are simple: be like water, fluid, flowing and fresh. It's plain and easy to deduce that surfing in clean seas and fresh waters is better than slicking about in crudeness, oil and filth.

Whale of a time!

Nice clip taken from Katherine Reed's facebook page!

Be.Like.Water. Taoism

A few words on Taosim, it is why Be.Like.Water is called as it is.

Surfing has allowed more insight into the simplicity of life and brings me closer to Tao, my aim is love and literally to flow, as water, knowing only the form it takes. A drop of water in the ocean becomes the ocean. A cup filled with water becomes the cup.

Some extracts taken from Alan Watts:

"The tao is a certain kind of order, and this kind of order is not quite what we call order when we arrange everything geometrically in boxes, or in rows. That is a very crude kind of order, but when you look at a plant it is perfectly obvious that the plant has order. We recognize at once that is not a mess, but it is not symmetrical and it is not geometrical looking. The plant looks like a Chinese drawing, because they appreciated this kind of non-symmetrical order so much that it became an integral aspect of their painting. In the Chinese language this is called li, and the character for li means the markings in jade. It also means the grain in wood and the fiber in muscle. We could say, too, that clouds have li, marble has li, the human body has li. We all recognize it, and the artist copies it whether he is a landscape painter, a portrait painter, an abstract painter, or a non-objective painter. They all are trying to express the essence of li. The interesting thing is, that although we all know what it is, there is no way of defining it. Because tao is the course, we can also call li the watercourse, and the patterns of li are also the patterns of flowing water. We see those patterns of flow memorialized, as it were, as sculpture in the grain in wood, which is the flow of sap, in marble, in bones, in muscles. All these things are patterned according to the basic principles of flow. In the patterns of flowing water you will all kind of motifs from Chinese art, immediately recognizable, including the S-curve in the circle of yang-yin.

So li means then the order of flow, the wonderful dancing pattern of liquid, because Lao-tzu likens tao to water:

The great tao flows everywhere, to the left and to the right,
It loves and nourishes all things, but does not lord it over them.

For as he comments elsewhere, water always seeks the lowest level, which men abhor, because we are always trying to play games of one-upmanship, and be on top of each other. But Lao-tzu explains that the top position is the most insecure. Everybody wants to get to the top of the tree, but then if they do the tree will collapse."

Wonderful folk

Was it as I watching my shadow loom its own projection onto a 30ft mysterious canvas constructed from the thick sea mist after chatting with the wonderful folk at Manobier, perhaps the couple in their 80's shed some new joi de vie upon my travels. Could perchance the solitude have evoked melding between I and the ocean blue?

Or, sat on the wall at The Kings Head and having my jaw ache from true laughter that happens when wonderful folk combine, was it this perhaps?

The artists, chemical heads Bobbing about, the shapers of alaia boards, the driftwood craft makers, the scribes, the illustrators and organisers, the travellers and fellow hobo's, the older folk reclining in their furniture comprised of a community. The shop owners and their tales, the charity shoppers, the film animators, the fish and chip shop birthday man, could it be that somehow the ocean sewed it's watery weave into a magical cloak that I shall forever wear?

It feels warm, there is pure love, the wonderful folk, the bluebells casting their hues along the wooded warriors path of lightness...

All folk are wonderful...