This newsletter launches officially on World Gratitude Day, September 21, 2022.
However, we’re in the midst of a heat wave … too hot to do anything outside, imho, so this is just a bit of wandering and wondering about inner genius, the world 485 million years ago, and gratitude.
I spent my growing-up years as a lonely, only child living on thirteen acres of scrub oak woodlands bounded by a creek, two barbed wire fence rows, and a two-lane road. Had I been a bit wiser, I might have recognized it as the paradise it was. However, being an ordinary kid, it has taken decades to appreciate its wonder.
I think of those years as my own dark ages: a world that offered few answers to a curious child. Mostly, I packed those years away in a cabinet and it is only occasionally that an unexpected breeze loosens the cabinet door and a memory slips out. A newsletter from Jeffrey Davis was just such a breeze, bringing back a memory, a moment of wonder.
As often happens, it was a question that set Jeffrey's newsletter topic in motion, and it was his question that sent me down my own memory lane. The original, completely adult, question involved how to be more effective at solving problems by being more playful.
How to be more playful is a somewhat common question for us adults; however, Jeffrey's take on it opened up a new path. In order to be more playful, maybe we needed to look back to when we were more playful naturally ... when what we did was play.
His two-part question was:
Ask yourself, who have I always been since a child when I felt free and alive without regard for reward? What activities was I naturally drawn to as a child that lit up, that activated, a distinct part of my character?
I started to read on as this seemed like familiar ground and I was such an ordinary child ... then somewhere in the machinery of my mind, the word "fossils" flashed and memories started unrolling.
Unsurprisingly, the creek was the magnet; Shorty, our English shepherd dog, my companion. In the banks of that childhood creek, I found fossils. Unimpressive, small worm-like fossils and quite a few of them. I knew they were fossils. Period. It was a thrill to find them and I probably kept some of them in a box, but it wasn't until decades later, when Professor Google, who answers all questions, came forward and I wondered what kind of fossils they were. Crinoids was the answer.
And, it wasn't until Jeffrey asked his question, that I thought of those fossils as being part of my childhood play. Spending days wandering through the woods with Shorty, digging in the creek banks, finding tadpoles and fossils, my untended curiosity stuffed into a box under my bed.
It reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara standing in a field promising that she would never be hungry again. I didn't stand up and resolve to never have my questions unanswered again, however, as computers and the internet opened up the world, I found great joy in finding answers to even the most ordinary questions.
Crinoids
Photo: https://geokansas.ku.edu/crinoids
Even today, when I read again about Crinoids, it makes me ache for the void that curious child faced so many years ago when she discovered fossils but had no way of knowing what she had just found.
What if someone had told her that about 485 million years ago, right where she was standing, was the floor of a great ocean carpeted with a dense thicket of strange flowers, swaying this way and that with the ocean currents? And, what if those strange flowers, which were actually animals sometimes called "sea lilies", were actually relatives of starfishes and sea urchins? (This assumes these particular crinoids survived the great extinction 252 million years ago.)
I have to wonder if my life would have taken a different turn if I had known the wonder of my relationship to that small plot of earth's history?
Jeffrey goes on to encourage us to think about the inherent genius of our young selves; the authentic genius that came out in play when there was no job or prize or other reward on the line. If we think of genius as being that spark of who we are ... each of us ... it can be empowering to realize that it has always been with us and will always be a part of us. I think of that child, me, wandering the edges of her thirteen acre world, finding treasures and wondering about them. That's pretty darn close to where I am these days only my wandering and wondering self has a LOT more resources and amazing toys.
Jeffrey Davis goes on to recommend that we incorporate the qualities of that child at play when we approach the challenges of our adult world ... and I resolve to let no curiosities go untended. I will pay more loving attention to the wonders of our world and joyfully express gratitude for the gift of curiosity.
Here's Jeffrey Davis’s newsletter/video: Canoe Talk #5.
I never knew about crinoids, so thanks for the post. I can't add any new information about crinoids but can respond to the two questions.
Who have I always been since a child when I felt free and alive without regard for reward?
Being an Acadian Mi'kmaq child in the state of Maine where the current population derives from the early English settles, I felt different. Even today, the largest demographic in Maine is English American, 98% of everyone - - more than any other state. I always sensed myself to be outside the dominant culture, and classmates sometimes asked where I'm from, and after learning, prodded me to give examples of my native language. Usually, I responded "you're mucus and ignorant" which we, together, found humorous. I learned that forgiving childhood slights was a generous act and was appreciated by the unintentional offender. There were drawbacks for being different and not skilled in the English language, but I also understood the benefit of seeing the world from a different lens. While still young and undeveloped cognitively, I knew I could make small contributions to improve human conditions around me; I learned how to persuade my childhood peers to stop picking on me and be more friendly to my autistic brother. That understanding of myself as an effective communicator remains, mostly driven by my connection with nature, perhaps even the ancient crinoids whose remains remind us of the greater cosmos. I'm grateful to be in good health at 65 years of age, no longer living in poverty, and having the benefit of teaching at a university where I can transform lives and, perhaps, shift popular thinking toward a more equitable society. I sense our world to be on the cusp of slipping back to when conditions were controlled by monarchies (and the church - - you know which one) where governance came from a single voice and was enforced by brutal warfare. Okay, monarchies are no longer so powerful. I’m grateful for that. But, I now fear the reemergence of “cowboy posses” where those who can yell louder, shoot faster and disregard law without consequences, can control resources and ideology. My ancestors suffered a tremendous genocide by the first American settlers, but today I’m grateful for what American democracy can potentially bring us and I’m still committed to seeking ways to improve human conditions.
What activities was I naturally drawn to as a child that lit up, that activated, a distinct part of my character?
Walking and picnicking in the woods near my home, horse-riding, swimming at the local pond, looking for flint, fishing, gardening, reading, picking berrries, and observing people’s behavior.
When I first went to Cairo in 1997, the British Club had a chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a running club with a drinking problem. I was usually a walker, especially if the “run” was in the great Sahara desert. As I was walking along, I looked down and ground was covered in, tiny, fingernail sized seashells. From millions of years ago when the area was an ocean. For a long moment, I stopped dead in my tracks, looking around at the desert, trying to imagine that ancient ocean. Susan Larson