Day 9: The Dance

“We dance ‘round in a ring and suppose

while the Secret sits in the middle and knows.” – Robert Frost

I remember first reading this Robert Frost couplet in a high school English class circa 1967. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much else from those classes where poetry and ideas were often taught as secondary in importance to the rudimentary knowledge of spelling and grammar. I didn’t do well in those subjects. After 11 years of punctuation and “i”-before-“e”-except-after-“c,” I, quite frankly, lost interest. I ascribe to the philosophy of Andrew Jackson who once quipped, “It is a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.” I would have done much better if I could have taken more interesting classes like Creative Spelling or Creative Geography. What makes things even weirder is I eventually fell in love with Literature and Poetry and ended up teaching high school English for 35 years. While I am sure that many of my students felt as distracted as I did at 17 years old, sitting in a high school classroom on a spring morning - I loved biting into ideas that resonated through time and sharing them with students.

For some reason, this quote broke into my lethargy back then and has stuck with me all these years. Just this morning it barged back into my consciousness forcefully announcing its place on the journey. I am just not sure why. Over the years it has popped up in poetry or textbooks or in a contemplative echo ... and still I have no real sense of its meaning. Maybe that’s why I like the quote so much. Its essence is too profound to put on a multiple choice test. Why did Mr. Frost capitalize the word “Secret?” What does it know that “We” don’t? After all these years, I have no simple answers, but I do have lots of ideas.

First of all, I love the fact that this brilliant poet laureate included himself in the dancing “‘round in a ring.” He doesn’t claim to be in the know any more than the rest of us, and I like his company. And then he capitalized the “Secret” ... is he inferring “God” ... or perhaps the “Universe?” I guess if we are dancing round supposing it doesn’t much matter what we call it because we don’t get it anyway. In today’s world of social media no one seems willing to admit to being on the spiritual merry-go-round. It is always the other guy who is confused, not us ... not me - I am the holder of objective Truth.

I think this saying has stuck with me because I have often been one of those who knew. When I look back to disappointments in my life and times when my paradigm was shattered by reality, invariably it was because I thought I knew. If I have gained any wisdom as I have gotten older it is to not to cling too tightly to my beliefs. Don’t get me wrong, I have not thrown any of my fundamental ideas away, I just approach them more as ideas rather than beliefs. They are in flux, flexible, growing ... not set in cement. I have learned so much over the years that I am reasonably sure I know very little. So the journey for me is going to continue to focus and dialogue ideas while being aware of my place dancing round the ring!

The Journey Continues…

#Dance #Journeyof1000Days #Paradigm #Teaching