A personal mail from the future President

I am so pleased to have twice donated money for the Obama campaign - now Barack himself !! - is writing me again for even more money to help him with his final push - indeed there are only six/five more days to go until November 4th....

Let us hope that enough of our American friends will be motivated as never before and vote for their first black President - we will soon know the result - did you see the line where Barack tells me that his campaign is (also) in my hands...isn't modern mass email a wonderful tool - just ask the spammers!!

How to build trust:Pace,pace,pace.

Last week we talked about job interviews and the concept of pacing.We agreed that in order to create rapport and trust between two or more persons it would be very helpful to engage in the act of pacing.....and we did some exercises with this as well - mostly by pacing body postures and breathing rythms.

By the way - over the weekend - I began to wonder if I am still in good rapport with my 1A students - or has the process of "losing" them inadvertently been started and would that mean that I - Jay - needed to go back and pace them and their needs?

In any case - today I brought a "gadget" to class in order to demonstrate the concept of pacing more clearly almost metaphorically and to give a few students a chance "to feel" what it is like to be in good rapport.Basically I handed them two flexible metal rods that are about three feet in length.There is a handle on the one end and some sort of wooden container box ( similar to the head of a medium size tobacco pipe ) on the other end.

The idea is to tranfer a small round ball from one of the wooden container box ( the provider ) into the other box ( the receiver ) - it sounds simple but since these rods are highly flexible they swing back and forth and need to be stabilized and brought closely together in harmony - to then try to successfully achieve the desired transfer.

I explained that the one person could be called the "teacher" - and the person on the receiving end would then be called the "student". ..and the ball would symbolize i.e. the grammar behind using do/does/did when asking certain questions in the present or past!! And it would take trust and rapport and closeness and some balance skills to bring the "ball" ( the grammar ) home into the "bucket" ( the student's brain ).......or as in our initial role playing exercise: how to pace the interviewer well enough to get that sought after job offer.

After we had played with the rods and I had done my explaining part - I was unsure ( and I still am ) if the students truly understood the concept I had intended to get across. ??

Who are you really?

On my Sunday afternoon walk through the nearby compounds of Germany's second largest Rudolf Steiner Community ( Waldorf Schools ) I came across this hand-made road sign.The English translation might read as follows: "we perceive so little ( we are conscious of so few things ) because we lost the ability to truly rest our eyes on the item at hand"

I completely agree with the statement.We usually take one or two seconds in which we look at someone or something and then our mind takes over and sticks a label onto the "thing" like: grey cat; cracked egg;or dead bird - just to name three items I came across during my walk.

And that's it.Done and finished.The mind took over, a label was given and on to the next piece....and the same process repeats itself. At school it is not much different....a quick glimpse at an unknown student, at a new face in the hallway, a fast label and on to the next person or encounter.

If the message on the sign is indeed correct - what can we do to break this limiting pattern? How can true in-depth perception be restored? Do we need to get "high" on certain drugs to enhance our senses - our so-called doors of perception?

They may and DO help as a start but soon the effect will wear out and then what? I think the best way to restart my ability to truly perceive is to begin with the right perspective....for it is the perspective that shapes my perception.So what would be the optimal perspective from which to look at any "object" or person? I would say the best one can do is to come to the scene with an open mind and a loving heart.These qualities will definitely influence and enhance my perception.

I would now have a far greater chance to see through the outer form of my subject and perceive its hidden essence,its beingness at a deeper level - I would begin to relearn to truly rest my eyes - and this new"wahrnehmen" this new perceiving would be beyond the world of thoughts.

Will it be that easy? Tomorrow at school I will have lots of opportunities to test the above!

Hans im Glück - an early German Forrest Gump?

Last night I felt a need to re-read an old German fairy tale: "Hans im Glück " and in case you can't quite remember the plot let me refresh your memory.Hans had been away from his village for seven good years and he felt it was time to go home and be with his mother again.His Master had been very pleased with Hans and to compensate him well he gave Hans a nice lump of gold - almost as large as the young man's head!

Hans was delighted and at once began his journey home.Soon the gold became too heavy,he traded it for a horse;the horse was too wild and Hans agreed to trade it for a cow;when he was unable to milk the cow, he exchanged her for a pig.The pig - it was suggested - may have been a stolen one and Hans was happy to let go of it for a well fed goose.Finally a con artist relieves him of the goose for two ordinary coble stones letting Hans believe he could use them to sharpen folks' knives and scissors thus making good money for the rest of his days...and of course they soon became heavy and during a short pause at a drinking well Hans accidentally pushed them off the wall and he saw them hit the deep bottom with a splash.

Hans wasn't bothered - he was happy to be free of them and with light steps he finished his journey home.

After I had finished the story I was puzzled about the ending.....for each time Hans had been trading one "object" for another I had hoped he would hold on to the next - and especially after he had "lost"that big lump of gold....why did he exchange gold for an untrained horse etc.?? and then I flashed over to Forrest Gump...was Forrest not also being led from one episode to the next,to the next and letting go of the former each time?

And this then maybe the deeper message for my students and myself: it is most likely quite wise to not hang on to or to identify with objects that the world of forms presents us with - in the end they will only burden us and make us "heavy".... but that is only one aspect - there is another far deeper bond that Forrest and Hans share...and I will get to that at a later date.

The acceptance of the present moment

Yesterday my daughter came home from school - frustrated.Things didn't work out the way she had hoped they would.She went upstairs and logged on to the Internet.That did not help her to get out of her stuck-state.She then came downstairs once more and tried to change her poor mood by watching TV.That did not help her either.

Finally she grabbed our cat,sat down on the couch with her and started to pet and caress the one year old animal....and since the cat was reluctant at first and wanted to jump off the sofa - it took awhile until the two had bonded and then settled into a very,very relaxing "dance"...The cat purred,the daughter caressed and made soothing sounds,the cat stretched and responded and my daughter started to breathe deeper - and ever so slowly both became more and more present and even facial muscles started to relax and to flatten...what a nice and positive change of state.

I watched both of them from a distance pretending to read the daily paper at our dining table and there was a certain tenderness emanating from the two - and when it was time for them to let-go of each other - my daughter got up, smiled and asked me kindly if I wanted to join her for some tea and "Stollen".

So what is the lesson here? Now that I am studying the teachings of Eckhart Tolle I would say stillness arises when we learn to inwardly align with the "drama" of what this very moment has to offer - to say yes to the "is-ness" first ( "I am in a bad mood - things didn't work out" ) and then to proceed from there but now on a deeper level to make the needed changes.

Needless to say - my professors did NOT teach me these things while I was at college in Oregon - or should I better say: I was NOT ready for that type of message - and as far as I know we still don't teach this at my present school either - and I wonder if there is even a subject ( ein Unterrichtsfach ) where it would be appropriate to teach these insights.

And I guess I needed "the time" - these almost 40 years - that separate the above photo and the one on my post of Sept. 25 - to finally begin to truly hear and experience this wisdom - and I can only hope that my students will take less time to experiment with the workings of their Minds.

To act or not to act

Only two days after I had expressed my worries here about what to do with my so-called financial nest egg,this wonderful cartoon was published in the October 10th International Herald Tribune....I clipped it and faxed it to my bank - asking them whether I should do the same thing as this years nobel prize winner for good economic judgement? Their reply came back within minutes: please, don't you worry - about your deposit with us - if it wasn't safe we would tell you!!

Over the years I have learned to trust my intuition - and my inner voice is still telling me to withdraw all my savings and to keep them at home for awhile until this global financial crisis has been overcome - and I wonder why I am so hesitant to act accordingly.....what advice will I get from my students this coming Monday?

And then one day.....

More than three years ago I clipped this cartoon from my International Herald Tribune newspaper....to be exact - it was on March 16,2005.

There was a sense of "the US housing bubble might soon burst" in the air - but apparently nobody wanted to notice the coming dangers.....that very same year I visited friends in Oregon and they asked:"jay,where are you coming from?" and I smiled thinking that this was a rather odd question-for they all certainly knew where I was from.

Then they specified the question: "Jay, what we mean is: do you come from scarcity ( Mangel Ecke) or from abundance ( aus der Fuelle )?" Well,that was a good question I had not heard before and it made me think....and I realized that I do have a sorting system in my head that lets me often come from scarcity...like: not enough of this,not enough of that;this is also lacking and that is still missing as well...etc.

And now that the major global financial crisis is here I seem to again be coming from scarcity: I fear for the few savings I have - I am worried that I may lose what Americans call my financial nest egg ( mein kleines angespartes Fiananzpolster ) - because NOW the REPO MAN ( reposession man - der "Pfand"abholer ) has arrived - in the USA first ( see cartoon ) and will he soon be standing at our European door as well - wanting it all back? So I wonder and worry what that would do to my students, our school and my/our future plans??

From Here to Riga and Back

What do most language teachers love to do? They like to travel.....I definitely fall into this catagory.....in addition I seem to be a "show and tell" type teacher...I like to discover new things and then to talk about them.....so it was a great pleasure to fly to Riga in Latvia and stay seven nights in Old Town Riga and to explore its eight hundred years of history.

On my many walks I discovered this giant poster of G.W.Bush and Putin and I thought of how they had used English as their means to communicate - so one might even say that teaching and learning English helps to maintain world peace....in other words I am not just teaching The Tenses to my 1 A class students - but am I not also helping to bring about and foster the concept of our interdependence on planet Earth.....will this then qualify me for a pay raise??