women are socialized to connect to others, to look to others, to think
about and care for others. i have only recently begun the struggle to
create a space for my self, to mute the cries of the neediness of others,
to create a moment between the time someone asks for my help and my
dropping everything to give it, to
self-reflect.
to reflect on why i do these things
and
why it's expected of me
and
my not-doing self-sacrifice, not-doing self-silencing, not doing
self-oppressing
are what gets noticed and complained about or ridiculed or censored or
discouraged
(and i don't necessarily mean here on xmca-in fact, quite the opposite
often happens here).
so, again, it's context-dependent
some people have given up so much individuation that they need to practice
more self-ish-ness.
others need to practice connection, or social awarness, more.
non-duality, the movement (something like dialectic), the tension
between
self and other,
this dance with otherness (dare i say diversity?) [couldn't resist it!]
this
process
is what i see as a method for supporting all the practices that individual
people need to work on/with/in during different times and places in their
lives.
the fluffing up, the smoothing over, the simplifying of the world that is
done for students in schools only makes the individual struggles for
meaning more difficult,
i think.
it's one thing to teach, believing we all construct our own meaning, and
quite another to communicate not only that chaos, but all the social
constraints and consequences, to students without fear.
i believe i can only do that if i am able to accept this (the historical,
cultural constraints and my responses and interpretations of such) in my
own life.
kathie
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
life's backwards,
life's backwards,
people, turn around.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^sinead o'connor and john reynolds
fire on babylon: universal mother^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Katherine_Goff who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu
http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~katherine_goff/index.html