“When we place ourselves as apprentices, the whole Universe teaches: other than transmission education in a more than human world”
Luciele Comunello
(UERGS)
Isabel Cristina de Moura Carvalho
(Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG Brazil)
Contribution description:
Taking education as a way of leading out into the world and learning as an ontological process, this proposal presents aspects of learning in ecovillages, bringing different takes on education, based on openness to "read the world" and education of attention towards "intuition" and "attunement".
Paper long abstract:
This study took place in two ecovillages - in Brazil and Scotland -, between 2013 and 2016, on learning processes within communities that seek a sustainable way of life. Educational processes in these two contexts suggest attention, intuition, tune and resonance as ways of learning with everything that surrounds us - human and non-human beings.
Learning how to carefully pay attention to life, forms, textures, interactions flows within an ecosystem is an intrinsic part of living in a harmonic relation to nature in Arca Verde. Reading the world’s “teachings” in its materiality and, thus, engaging in an integrated way is very important to build a clay house, to handle an agroforestry, but also to be aware that the presence of certain animals, that cross your way in a given moment, means something to your spiritual journey. Understanding the meaning of an animal apparition is an exercise of both observation and intuition, as told me one of my interlocutors - Brigit - while contemplating a snake that was stuck in the front of the kitchen door. She observed trying to understand, by it, what was the “snake teaching”. Furthermore, she brought a reference to the meaning of the snake for the “ancient people”. The apparition of an animal is not random, but part of a greater intelligence that must be unraveled as a track in the way of the one that "receives" it, towards self knowledge and healing. Placing yourself as an apprentice means being open “as a child that is always admired with everything around”, and to develop a certain sensibility to comprehend Universe’s clues. This opening disposition enables us to learn with the Universe, as opposite to closeness that makes us unable to reconnect. Although some members of this community would take things like this, others would explain animal’s apparition through a more rational approach. Different understandings and ways to relate to life cohabit. The notion of “learning with the Universe”, refers to an attention that makes relations between all things arround us and our existential journey and, through the first, giving meaning to the last. It is an affirmation of reality in its multiple dimensions, layers, densities, in an ontological perspective that implies pluralism.
In Findhorn, most of the decision making processes happened through “attunement”, as a proposal to “move from head to heart and body”, which implies educating the attention to perceive senses (body signs), sensations and emotions and intuitions instead of rational thinking. Learning to be in tune with oneself, with ones own intuition, with other intelligences, or even with a grupal field, educating attention to intuition and experience, would lead us to be closer to a non individual sphere, being ways of accessing elements that are, at first, unconscious. Attunement is a way of communication through communion, once people don't make them to connect with something that is separated, but instead with the unity of the whole life that lives inside of us and above us.
Accepted Contribution:
Contribution description:
Paper long abstract:
This study took place in two ecovillages - in Brazil and Scotland -, between 2013 and 2016, on learning processes within communities that seek a sustainable way of life. Educational processes in these two contexts suggest attention, intuition, tune and resonance as ways of learning with everything that surrounds us - human and non-human beings.
Learning how to carefully pay attention to life, forms, textures, interactions flows within an ecosystem is an intrinsic part of living in a harmonic relation to nature in Arca Verde. Reading the world’s “teachings” in its materiality and, thus, engaging in an integrated way is very important to build a clay house, to handle an agroforestry, but also to be aware that the presence of certain animals, that cross your way in a given moment, means something to your spiritual journey. Understanding the meaning of an animal apparition is an exercise of both observation and intuition, as told me one of my interlocutors - Brigit - while contemplating a snake that was stuck in the front of the kitchen door. She observed trying to understand, by it, what was the “snake teaching”. Furthermore, she brought a reference to the meaning of the snake for the “ancient people”. The apparition of an animal is not random, but part of a greater intelligence that must be unraveled as a track in the way of the one that "receives" it, towards self knowledge and healing. Placing yourself as an apprentice means being open “as a child that is always admired with everything around”, and to develop a certain sensibility to comprehend Universe’s clues. This opening disposition enables us to learn with the Universe, as opposite to closeness that makes us unable to reconnect. Although some members of this community would take things like this, others would explain animal’s apparition through a more rational approach. Different understandings and ways to relate to life cohabit. The notion of “learning with the Universe”, refers to an attention that makes relations between all things arround us and our existential journey and, through the first, giving meaning to the last. It is an affirmation of reality in its multiple dimensions, layers, densities, in an ontological perspective that implies pluralism.
In Findhorn, most of the decision making processes happened through “attunement”, as a proposal to “move from head to heart and body”, which implies educating the attention to perceive senses (body signs), sensations and emotions and intuitions instead of rational thinking. Learning to be in tune with oneself, with ones own intuition, with other intelligences, or even with a grupal field, educating attention to intuition and experience, would lead us to be closer to a non individual sphere, being ways of accessing elements that are, at first, unconscious. Attunement is a way of communication through communion, once people don't make them to connect with something that is separated, but instead with the unity of the whole life that lives inside of us and above us.
Anthropology as education
Session 1