FREEDOM.....

(post #23)

I love it when a flower or little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete... It's so fuckin   heroic."     
George Carlin

Freedom
Words by Richie Havens

Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long way from my home

Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom
Freedom

Sometimes I feel like I’m almost gone
Sometimes I feel like I’m almost gone
Sometimes I feel like I’m almost gone
A long, long, long, way, way from my home

Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Hey… yeah

I got a telephone in my bosom
And I can call him up from my heart
I got a telephone in my bosom
And I can call him up from my heart

When I need my brother… brother
When I need my mother… mother
Hey… yeah… etc.

and now for my little commentary of the day.  Today's topic is Freedom.

What a powerful word.

It's far too powerful to be used in such casual reference as I hear these days.

Free to do this, free to do that, free from terror, free from injustice, fat free, sugar free, or free just to be, if that's your flavor of free.  

 Freedom is the main road.... the interstate, which is why I call it the FREEway...  it's the main drag to where you want to be....any other offshoots tend to get me lost or off course, and than can't always be avoided.  BUT,  If and when two people find, and sustain, this course, remarkably together, it can be a beautiful thing.  I have heard.

Rosette Spoonbill...

When I retired from teaching high school horticulture in 2012, I felt a sense of what I will term here, retroactive thinking, similar to deja vu, but different too.

 Retro seems to be a hip word these days as it infers the act of reviving something from the past, typically in a positive application.  And so this retroactive thinking just came all over me ...  like somewhere from the past.   It's like that excitable rush you get when you find yourself suddenly on a jet plane bound for some new country or place with great expectations in your gut....  it's like that dream that just came true and you just can't control your exuberance, and you do your damn best to capture any of the stridence that is gurgling out of you all at once before it slips away and is gone.

I know what freedom is...

For me, this retro-consciousness is a recollection, or revisitation, of those formative days in my younger years when freedom was just about all I lived for.... new places, new mysteries, while taking the time to study the minute details of a sunset, or spending ample time just staring in meditative moods at places of great beauty found just about anywhere in your path.  Freedom. It means different

Me Too.

things to different people, and all of those interpretations are valid if it sets you independent and unbound, liberated, footloose and unconfined even for a moment.  It can be a moment or it can be a lifestyle.For me, this thing called freedom is opening my eyes gaping wide to new places, new people, and as simple as it may sound, new adventures... for what really makes an adventure an adventure?  Is it the unknown?  Is it the element of risk?  Everyone has the potential and the skills we've each been given to pull it off to ensure that it will take flight and not just remain in some distant realm of possibility.... like someday, someday, someday.

If the unpredictability of the new day gives you goose bumps, and you are open to the possibilities of seeing, breathing, feeling, and touching the depths of newness and goodness in everything, then my kind of freedom is here, within reach... give it a bear hug and every little detail for the rest of the day will fall into perfect place.

As a teacher, I tried to run my classroom that way.  Each day completely new, each day different, each semester remarkably different than the previous... But that ever changing reliance could wear me down at times, cause I put the pressure on myself to enhance change and build on the unknown.... It always boggled me when one of my more astute students would say, "Mr. Green, what will be doing in class Thursday of next week,  cause I have to be out of town on that day?"  Sheepishly, I would make up some line such as, "oh we'll be moving on to Chapter 10 by then," although I had no idea what Chapter 10 even was... I mean, I had a general idea of where I was taking them in their course of study, but if the sun was shining or sand hill cranes were migrating overhead, or it was warm enough to walk in the rain, we might alter it all to go study leaf structure, insect habitats, or flight patterns on our back while facing cumulous clouds all day... It's all learning in the moment,  whether you focus on Chapter 10 or Chapter Zillion.... to be continued.

Great memories jammin' with students.... "sing songs, plant seeds..."