Trinity Child (dedicated to W.B. Yeats)

(photo care of deviantart)

Studying Yeats at online University, I've been pondering the-end-of-the-current-civilizations symbol of the sphinx in his poem "A Second Coming". This symbol i.e. the moving collective consciousness of all things connected to the falcon, or the bird of the enlightened one, moves to reincarnate as a 'contrary-Christ' (NOT an anti-christ) and represents a major change in civilization as we know it. Granted a change of massive chaos. However this poem attempts to personalize this symbol and its aftermath with my experiences of family life. Thus a babe, attempting to sleep, twists as chaos reigns, "teething and seething", the symbol of this change, and then the bliss-romance of all after dream time becomes the poems truth...

yeats' poem:

 Turning and turning in the widening gyre

    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst

    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;

    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;

    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know

    That twenty centuries of stony sleep

    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Can't Believe It; Meditation and the Classroom...

(photo from eScienceCommons)

By Jason B.R. Maxwell

Curtin University Student

16072794

I didn’t believe it. Nah, no way…  Yet this wasn’t the fact that our regular terminator-jawed teacher was away for the day. No, this was the fact that in one of those mass-produced, shoebox classrooms, there shoved up back of our country Victorian school in Yea, we were all quiet. Yes there with the summers cow-paddock haze coming into the open windows, the whole afternoon year 8 class, rowdy as bay 13 was now meditating. There was no spit-balling, no names, no hideous  obnoxious jokes, for once  I  felt safe, there was  nothing but    the sound of breathing and the gentle music  and calm voice coming from one of  those bulky  grey  Sony  CD  players prolific in the nineties.  

 

If you’ve ever taught in a primary or secondary situation you may end up asking, so who  was  this miracle working emergency teacher and  when  can she come work this miracle for me? Like some pseudo mystic, I’m afraid I’m going to have to say that the answer was not some super-powered psychologist/hypnotist/teacher, although she had the good sense to briefly step out of the usual  monotonous curriculum that turns normal 15 year olds into howling demons on ‘those days’.

No. The answer is called Mental Silence. 

Granted, my experience back in 1997 was probably called something different, but today, the essence is the same, it’s the ‘new’ weapon in a schools arsenal to combat a lack of classroom concentration. Yes, with the help of the head of Sydney University’s Meditation research program, Dr Ramesh Monacha, schools are coming around to the old idea.   With   his book ‘Silence your Mind’,  and many eye-brow raising, peer reviewed research   papers,  he   tells  of    the benefits  of  Sahaja  meditation, where the goal  is  to  achieve a more peaceful and therefore healthy and elastic mind.

                                                                                   

 But with my mind  and  for  the 22.2  per  cent  of  Australians declaring no religion in the last census, I’m  going   to   say  no, you don’t have to be religious to believe in this practice. Sahaja meditation sounds very hindu-kesh, code word for complete placebo balony, but what comes with Dr Monacha’s angle is some serious, non-sectarian, evidence-based research. Dr Monacha defines, with clinical standard experiments, the most beneficial meditation as the experience of ‘mental silence’.  What he calls in a podcast with Nightlife on the ABC “turning off the monkey chatter”. In his demonstrations he encourages affirmations such as “I am the pure silence” and boasts of 10 per cent of students achieving complete Mental Silence on the first try.

But some of the most impressive results go beyond simple volume control. What comes out of Dr Monacha’s University level data is that meditation improves the bodies self-regulation and hence the bodies reactions to things like inflammation, Asthma and Epilepsy, it improves mental health; improving the the release of happy hormone oxytocin and conditions such as depression and ADHD, and even the big one; social health - through awareness, reducing the bully - victim cycles in schools. 

Now if you’re a teacher reading this I’m sure I don’t need to say that this is golden news. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that in the current Australian classroom, mental and social health are in a serious situation.  Beyond Blue reports 1 in 4 people between 16-24 experience depression, Census data shows 7 per cent of 0-17 year olds are diagnosed with a disorder, and anxiety in our teaching population? The Sydney Morning Herald claims that “School teachers in NSW are making more than 800 compensation claims a year for stress-related injuries”. Here “unacceptably high” seems to be a little bit of an understatement.

Of course, many schools are trying to stem this tide through meditation on their own. One of which is Sacred  Heart Primary in Sydney where  they  had  40 volunteer students on the first go and great results concerning thought sequencing and class concentration.  At Climatech in Adelaide, assistant Principle Sue Nixon is also receiving positive feedback - that it’s great for exam preparation and how students are easier to settle.  She even had a boy come up to her at a school camp and say “I don’t feel pathetic in side anymore.”

Thus the question has to be asked; if there is proven, curriculum savvy methods available to us, then why aren’t we implementing these techniques structurally? Doing research for this paper, the search results for “meditation” in the Victorian Department of Education website turned up only three minor results for the word ‘meditation’. In their Mental Health section it isn’t mentioned once.  Here ‘unacceptably ignorant’ comes to mind.

Especially since there was positive data in the 80’s.

Personally, paradoxically, I really can’t answer this question without expletive poetry. However, for your sanity and mine, I’ll save you the extensive ramble. For one thing IS for sure, if Dr Monacha and others passionate about this amazing classroom tool have any part in it, the main stream WILL be coming around sooner or later. And having experienced it myself, I believe our children of the future will have something to look forward to…

Works Cited

Australian Bureau of Statistics. Who Are Australians older people?; Stories from 2011      Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 12th Dec. 2012. Web. 23rd Dec 2013.

________________________. Mental Health in Australia: A Snapshot, 2004-05. Australian          Bureau of Statistics. 30^th Aug. 2013. Web. 23^rd Dec. 2013.

Beyond Blue. Young People. Beyond Blue; Depression, Anxiety. N.d. Web. 23^rd Dec. 2013.

Delroy, Tony. Nightlife; The Science of Meditation Podcast. ABC local. 6^th Aug. 2013. Web.           23^rd Dec. 2013.

Manocha, Dr. Ramesh. Meditation, mindfulness and mind-emptiness. Acta           Neuropsychiatrica. 23: 46–47. 2011. doi: 10.1111/j.1601-5215.2010.00519.

Patty, Anna. Ed. Conflicting views on teachers' stress claims. Sydney Morning Herald. 8th             May. 2007. Web. 23^rd Dec. 2013.

Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Search Results. Victorian               Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Web. 23^rd Dec. 2013.

Picture:

eScienceCommons. Can meditation calm your kids?. Bing.com. N.d. Web. 23^rd Dec. 2013.

May Your Words...

(photo from unknown source)

This poem dedicated to the power of a poetic moment. Dedicated to chance lovers and the choice to leave things mundane or step out of the box and be daring, be you, seize the game by the controls and jazz trick your life to freedom-love. Poems note; "Flaneur" means "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer". Flânerie refers to the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A2neur

The Light in Fawkner Park

(Photo from unknown source)

In 2012 I was lucky enough to be driving an old friendly, lost-license roof plumber to work and ended up in Melbourne's Fawkner lush-Park for a few weeks. My time there for study and poetry could not have been more blissful, meditative, big dream, all with its dreaming hobos, playful children, motivated exercisers, and rushing, funny-greedy- weird business people. So, this beat poem is about talking to the surrounding beings and focussing on the trees and their consciousness. About feeling like an enemy to them, an enemy that has caused all their pain. And yet its also about the dialog between nature and humanity, navigating past this pain to true consciousness, mediating with love, understanding and awareness, an going with this all together...   

(apologies for the ad at the end, bloomin good station though...)

Pan Stayed on our Porch Once....

This poem is namely dedicated to the diety Pan, but also my bro and mum, living in a house five minutes from Nimbin main street back in 92. No. Not exactly an average experience and reason Paganism shines strong in my heart, (amongst quite a few fellow friends...). No, in fact I have given the whole year and a half experience a whole new collection of mine called "my inner child smiles at the art of time." For there, exploring my past with the meditation of poetry, O so many piquant spiritual experiences and shamans like this passing and leaving magic for my future youth, these with nameless and nuanced sorcery I find, the chaos godhead is still spellings smile...

2 into 1 at Dharma, Essence of Time...

(painting www.alexgrey.com)

I admit, I have a tendency for macro romantic dreaming. The huge realms of humanities great meaning, collectively evolved as one. So I ask; if enlightenment is the goal for the individual soul, a goal reached when we arrive at absolute zero, zero past the .07 second reaction that time has made possible on times great paradox of event and thought, then what of collective enlightenment? Is it possible, if we see our great mother earth as one soul consciousness, that she too is on the path to enlightenment? What would it feel like to be alive in the future incarnation of bodhisattva earth?

Losing the Shadows...

As performed @ To the Ends of the Verse, this poem is inspired by a micro memoir workshop lead by Cameron Semmens at End of the Line festival (phew! what a day!)  There I decided to write the beginnings of this piece about my past; meeting my fiancee Elise O'Connor at a Doof festival called Fool Proof 2 back in the dark winter of 2008. Combining it with a freestyle workshop, it thus transformed into the abyss piece here; mainly spiraling into social dysfunction, deep depression, un-existentialism, and the out, out into the fire twirling arts of losing all prison boundaries around the self, the act of ones destiny...

The End of the Line Festival

 http://www.endofthelinefestival.com/

Yess! Air punch! 30th of this month End of the Line festival is on once again! And with the massive 8 stages of musicka, including Bastian Killjoy, Mulder, and of course the great Fats Wah Wah there is poetry, rich luscious poetry. Yes local To the End of the Verse poetry group is initiating a star dusted anti-pesto poetry delux around the town of Belgrave including:

• 730 -late at the Lyrebird cafe is set for the 1st birthday of To the Ends of the Verse, all geared organically, the open mic night will be in full bloom! 
• A bunch of workshops at the Tiffany Bishop Collective, including an open panel work group on poetry writing lead by Matt Wilson from 12 o'clock, a dynamic 'shape of the word' group about performance lead by Icia Malloy from 1pm, a micro-memoir group by Cameron M Semmens 2.30pm and freestyle group by Bastian Killjoy and MC Convict at 4pm. 
• Thoughout the day, a base camp - info canopy at the Tin Shed and solo and collaborative performances there and at Earthly Pleasures stage, Market Stage and the Lyrebird cafe. See the web site for location details. 
• Micro message poems scattered around the town ready to enrapture your mind in a dance of joy,
• Fresh as the spring  performances between music sets by such local talent as Matt Wilson, Justine Walsh, Icia Malloy, Tigs and myself, just to name a few! 

Ahh yes open your mind and your tracks of time people, the great slow down of festive spirit is upon us! For waaay more info go to;

 End of the Line Program

Channon Market '92

(photographed by me Channon market)

This poem and its subject contains a particular resonance for me. Not only because it was about my first ride on a Clydesdale drawn horse and cart, but because of the true and powerful nature of the market and its effects on my dreaming childhood. For a market truly is a thing of collective beauty, of song and rich organic essence, a market is where empowered muse is en-skilled and crafted, where fresh gardens spring and overflow, where old friends and long journeys always meet again and new ones dance with spiritual abandon...

Tea Bee in the Garden

This beat poem is dedicated to all my friends and when we manage to part the doors of our times and converse our souls as truth.  For when that Vitamin D and all else chi-positive recedes in grey cold shadows and in thought damage, and when the post-modern depression of all human souls today close in around us, there’s nothing better than to remember a smiling face, a smiling place, the playfulness of all inner and outer children, and the being of who we are…