Travel Koan for Kelly

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Submitted by Cathy Davidson on January 29, 2008 - 8:18pm.
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not sunset, not sunrise: skylight after midnight!
The lovely, talented Kelly is about to embark on a sabbatical from teaching pilates. Since an accident five years ago, I’ve taken pilates regularly, once a week, sometimes twice, and (to everyone’s mirth) even three and four times last summer when feeling whole and sound again started going to my head, if not to my pretty-close-to-fully-functioning-again arm. In that endeavor to get well again, Kelly has given much, bringing her hip-hop laugh, creative touch, and skill to the reformer, the cadillac, the barrel, and the gyrokinesis tower, the odd pilates implements that stretch body parts you didn’t know could go that way. Kelly is taking time away. Time to travel to Thailand to learn energy work, to Seattle, LA, to write poetry and music, to learn again. It’s hugely exciting when someone decides to take a chance like that, to move out of schedule, routine, deadlines, the known, when someone decides to take the plunge into mystery. To make mistakes. It’s the only way to learn. To not wait for the accident that turns a life around but to embrace the unexpected. So, for Kelly, a travel koan. This one is beautiful, mysterious, about taking chances, not knowing, making mistakes but not falling, not darkening. I don’t know much about it except I found it floating around the internet and it caught my attention. I believe it is Chinese in origin and may be part of the fox koans. It means differently the more one thinks about it, the more one travels, taking chances, courting mistakes, not darkening, not falling. Travel, courage, disruption, learning, a koan of mistakes and not falling.   Safe and happy travels, Kelly!
Travel Koan for Kelly
Not falling, not darkening:
Two colors, one game.
Not darkening, not falling:
One thousand mistakes, ten thousand mistakes.
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Posted on: January 30, 2008 - 1:19pm #1
What a lyrical way to describe such adventures...
That was beautiful Cathy. It made me cry. When I get discouraged, I'll keep that in mind. My move has been difficult--going from a culture of educational innovation focused on teaching, a place where everyone knew me and valued on my knowledge--to one where teaching is viewed in oh-so-traditional ways if it's thought about at all. My dream is the same as the HASTAC dream. My ongoing efforts at understanding how the many different ways of viewing education (and the world) fit together continue to explode my brain on a regular basis. I'd like to bring some of that fun to the local denizens, and my efforts will continue! Thanks for the words of encouragement. I do hope I'll be able to fit the HASTAC meeting into my schedule so I can meet some of you like-minded folks face to face.
Posted on: January 31, 2008 - 9:23am #2
I hope we can meet sometime
I hope we can meet sometime too, if not this year, next. Good luck with your new work. I understand the frustration and how hard it is to make innovation sometimes, when all the forces go the other way. HASTAC was accused of "charlatanism" in public many, many times and we just kept at it because we knew we were on to something important. Good luck to you.