Dwell 1 February 2016

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Sally Gerard

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To dwell, to remain for a time, to live as a resident-to exist, abide, stick around, tarry. I like to dwell in various places and states of mind. I like to dwell in the plains and on mountain trails or on the beach with the sound of the waves and I like to dwell in the Lord. I delight in the beauty and grace of the land and I try not to hurry through it because I have somewhere more important to be or a job that doesn’t really need to be rushed but it is anyway.

Saturday morning was so incredibly beautiful and the frost on the barn roof grabbed my IMG_0516attention and I remained for time, just taking it in. We spent the morning adding insulators to one of the small pastures we rent so that this spring we’ll feel more secure with our heifers abiding there, and not so much time worrying over the neighboring bulls. The winds were still for once, and we did our assigned tasks in pleasant camaraderie.

I stopped every now and then just to look around and dwell in the incredible work of our Creator. He who made the vast plains and who also crafted each little wildflower along the mountain streams. I want that my heart should tarry in those still peaceful moments as I head into the week at school and with students how haven’t found those moments and maybe a bit of my own sense of peace will eek out and around them.

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Anger 28 January 2016

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Sally Gerard

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What happens when you are so angry about things that have happened in your life that you can’t see your way clear to anything. And when you feel that way and you’re only fifteen, wow, is there any hope? Of course, there is always hope, but we don’t always see it. They say that adolescence is the time to thrive, to flourish. But when you’ve let your life so far, do nothing but weigh you down, it’s hard to remember how to use the muscles that make your wings unfurl.

You never notice the possibility in the rising of the sun. You never notice the little girl with the huge heart that greets you every single day when you walk into the classroom-you pass right by her. You never notice all the camaraderie because you’re too busy trying to sabotage it. You never notice when you’ve written something so profound that the class IMG_0908sits with their mouths open and your teacher is moved to tears. You are bent on your own destruction and I can’t find the way through your haze of rage to help you find the path out and back into the bright sun and the blue sky.

The irony is, that little girl, the one who cheerily greets everyone each day, lives with rodents, may not have enough to eat because she’s shared what there was with her younger siblings, never has new phones or name brand clothes, and on IMG_0671her birthday, there is no cake and candles because her parents are still working. Her smile fills a room with light and joy and she is so proud of all of her little treasures. She has been dealt no better hand than him, but she sees the world completely differently. She thrives.

So I seated them together this week, with the idea that some of her pure joy, love, happiness, and enthusiasm for living will seep across the short distance between the desks and wear a little crack in the steel of his closed up soul.

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Inner Writing Life 27 January 2016

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Sally Gerard

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I had a little CTJ meeting with one of my classes after my whole contemplation of respect. I’d written that day, during writing time, about respect and how when there isn’t respect, it diminishes the writing community we’ve established in my room. From the beginning I’ve told students that it takes a lot of trust to share what you write from your heart. Granted, it isn’t always serious, but it is still your inner life that you are putting out there in front of others. Maybe they know you some, but not well. Maybe you’ve grown up in the same community and schools, but that doesn’t really mean anything.

So I opened it up for discussion and we all agreed that when there are one or two people who don’t respect the community, it makes it difficult for those around them to focus. Many shared their heartfelt concern for the effects of rudeness on the soul. I must have gone on a bit about how sacred writing time is and about how you write about things in the most honest way when there are so many times IMG_0481you are not allowed to voice your thoughts. One honest young woman raised her hand and said, “Ms. G, you know we aren’t all as passionate about this writing thing as you are. We just write-it’s not like we’re out there in the writing cosmos or anything.”

Okay, I get that. So, in the end, it all came down to me “fixing” the seating chart to better isolate the disrespect so that most of the class can ignore them and just do what they need to do. After that, everyone was pretty quietly focused on their poetry project. I think they are going to be out of this world!

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Respect 26 January 2016

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Sally Gerard

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I think a lot about the word respect, what it means and what it looks like. The definition reads: “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.” Some of the synonyms are: esteem, regard, deference, high opinion, admiration, reverence, and honor. After reading that, I wonder what I mean when  I tell students they are being disrespectful with their behavior toward other students and toward me.

Being kind and polite are ways to show respect and I expect that from my students as well as reflect it back to them. Do they have to have deep admiration for me? No, but they have to treat me like a human being. I think the Golden Rule applies whether or not there is esteem, admiration or reverence. Yesterday we wrote about what the world needs more of and what it needs less of. I think the world needs more kindness and less insult. I do my best to practice the behavior I want to see in my students. I think the world needs less grumbling of derogatory comments and more get out of your selfishness and listen to IMG_3617others.

Yes, I get that this is their time to thrive, their time to explore who it is they want to be, their time to need to belong to social groups, their time to keep their world wide-open to possibility. But, do they have to run their peers and me over in the process? Most of my students are actually very polite and caring toward each other and to me. I like them and they are so interesting to talk to. I wish and I pray, that those few who stand on the brink of rude and mean will figure it out. In the meantime, they can write about it.

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Tribulation and hope 25 January 2016

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Sally Gerard

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It is said that tribulation produces perseverance and that builds character. And if you have built character then you’ll have hope. I’m not sure how that all works to bring hope though. I get that trouble in life, at least for many people, causes you to persevere. I also agree that when you learn to persevere, it plays into who you are. So, is it that once you’ve learned to persevere you have hope that through the experience everything will work out once you push past the hard parts?

It’s the pushing past or sweating through those hard parts that I don’t necessarily appreciate. Sometimes, I just want it to be easy. I want to wake up and know exactly where I’m headed and the best path to take to get there. I want to know that even though the pathIMG_1622 may twist and turn a bit, head up hill for a ways, or turn into a little worn game trail, that I’ll get there and be able to celebrate victory. But this rarely happens, at least for me.

I struggle with sore muscles, lugging an overpacked knapsack, feel the blisters on my heels and wishing for the bench by the gurgling stream to be just Scenic003 (1)around the next corner-where I might sit and rest a bit, breathing in the sounds of the water, the air, the Earth alive around me. This is why I love to ride and hike and take tractor drives-breathing space.

Yes, I continue to hope and I don’t think it is a flaw. Hope keeps me going. Hope brings my hands together in prayer. Hope makes me continue to write. Hope is aspiration, wish, desire, ambition, goal, plan, design, trust, anticipation, want, belief, faith, and hope can change everything.

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Tiger 21 January 2016

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Sally Gerard

horsecamp2005 002We wrote poetry yesterday using Blake and others as models. During the course of class, we enjoyed another teacher’s recitation of If by Rudyard Kipling. This poem was published in 1895 and the message still holds true today. It is a powerful message. My students discussed his performance in relation to their own coming this day. Although we have watched many examples on-line, it was wonderful to have a live example.

I hope that several of them will have the confidence to compete in our school wide competition and maybe I’ll be taking a freshman along to the state competition. In the meantime, we continue to write our lives.

Some Blake-esque poetry:

Dear Dragon, do you know emotion? Have you felt regret for any acts of arson?   Dragon summer 2007 (2)do you think of all the people lost from your need of blood lust, or the homeless in the frost? Dragon could you imagine never doing these wrong things? If so, I might decide not to have you slain.

Shark! Shark! moving quickly. It has big ‘ol teeth that are prickly. It has fearful eyes that strike soul, they make your body feel cold. It doesn’t matter if you can’t shed a tear, a shark can just smell fear. It’ll rip you into pieces with no mercy. You’re in its home, which is the sea. And what method, way, can you make just to stay okay? And why should you fear a shark? Because, they’re all bite and no bark!

IMG_0812This one was to pick a color and use it five times in a poem: Gold is oh-so-tempting, to take without a thought, golden coins and claws encourage things to be bought. With all the gold a hero could want, but no shining companion, to share in golden want. So all of it is empty.

Where do we go from poetry? To Romeo and Juliet of course.

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Recitation 20 January 2016

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Sally Gerard
This morning's awesome beauty.

This morning’s awesome beauty.

There is something to be said for memorizing beauty, whether it is in words or mind pictures. We’ve been practicing reading our poetry out loud for a couple of weeks. Students each chose two poems to memorize and recite for the class. Some of them are really coming along and I can tell that the poem is beginning to come from their heart. Some are still struggling to get the words down and some, well, they’ll need the written words.

During all of this, we’ve also been writing our own poetry and now we’re working to build

My resident hay poet.

My resident hay poet.

our own anthologies, complete with art work. I’m excited to see how these projects turn out. Not only do my students need to have about twelve original poems, but they will also submit a piece of writing discussing their process through this unit-good or bad, and they’ll be writing an author bio about themselves.

Once they finish this project, we’ll have a presentation and sharing day where they’ll not only present their finished anthology project, but they’ll stand up and recite one of their own poems. I hope to make the room like some kind of cozy coffee shop, but I’m not quite sure how to accomplish that, except to provide some yummy little baked goods. I think it will be pretty fun, at least for a word-nerd like me.

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Alive and Well 19 January 2016

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Sally Gerard

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Poetry is alive and well, no matter how much my students groan. They write the most amazing lines about football, basketball, wrestling, tractors, farming, cheerleading, video gaming, friends, family and even dinner. Poetry should be a short lyrical response to the world, and theirs is.

Some of it is profound and some of it is terrible, but IMG_0488they are writing and writing from who they are. I’m pretty sure I read one yesterday that was none to complimentary toward me, but it was still heartfelt. We tackled “Double, double, boil and trouble…” yesterday and I got some pretty cool stuff:

“To make the crowd move with me, I need thunderous bass and passionate melodies; mind of a franchise and soul of a poor slave; a mic for my heart and a stage for my soul.”

We took a stab at Wordsworth’s ‘To Toussaint’ and many wrote tribute to their mothers, and I like this one: “To Grandpa”

IMG_0486O wonderful teacher, how long will you work-work long hours from sunrise to sunset-in the fields, in the shop, and working with the crops-or fixing stuff, laboring hard, taking short breaks and then teaching me the ways. Showing me how to do, showing me the ways of a farmer. IMG_0478

We are reciting poetry too, and having conversation about tone so we wrote poems about different words that describe tone so that, together, we could discover meaning. I think the  poems are remarkable. I love poetry. Love it.

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A Burning Star 18 January 2016

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Sally Gerard

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Do you live your life like a burning star? The stars don’t care who is watching or what their opinion is, they simple burn with a shining kind of grace, beautiful to see. Our lives maybe aren’t as long as a star, but we can burn with that kind of light too, even in the brief time that we have. We can live each moment to the fullest no matter how common the moment is.

I know I can get stuck in the “I don’t have enough time to get things done” frame of mind. IIMG_0094 can find myself wishing I had time for this or that, when I simply need to live in the here and now. As the Psalmist says, “Weeping my endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5

IMG_2806We didn’t do anything spectacular this weekend, but there were so many instances of simple burning grace. In the thick hoar-frost on the tall pine tree and the heavy fog we watched roll through the rows of round hay bales, in the visible breath of the horses and the warmth of their coats, in a walk under the clear blue sky, in shared meals after a long absence, in easy conversation with good friends, and in the pinks and oranges of the rising sun.

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Farm Tales 14 January 2016

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Sally Gerard
I didn't have this light turned on!

I didn’t have this light turned on!

Sometimes my life brings me sweet surprises and this morning’s adventure still has me laughing. Of course, it could have been a completely different outcome, including chasing, colorful language, and eventual capture.

I like to run in the very early morning because it is the best view of the stars, there is a peace that time of day providing the space to think and to pray, and I still have plenty of time for chores and work, and coffee, when I get back. On my own, I usually feed as soon as I get back. That means it is still dark.

Right now we are babying a little bull who had a cough and he is in the corral next to the barn where we can give him grain and his own stash of hay, and mostly keep a closer eye on him. When I open the barn door to get his grain, much like the horses, he is at the feed trough and ready for the deposit. Today, he wasn’t there and even when I called to him, he didn’t come over. I couldn’t see anything.

Taking a step back, I realized that my neat stack of easily accessible hay-left for me by oneIMG_0154 of the most thoughtful guys I know-was all messed up, torn apart, and scattered. At this point, I smelled a rat and I replayed the previous morning’s feeding in my brain to make sure I’d closed all the gates. My first suspicion was that the horses must have done it! They always get the blame, fair or no. But, my mind movie assured me that I had closed all the gates.

Then, I heard him… a plaintive kind of lost sound, but definitely bovine. He’d gotten out and ransacked the hay pile, stood by the gate into the pasture for a long while probably wondering why no one was letting him back in with his buddies. I know he must have stood there a while because he left several piles of the ransacked hay that he’d spent the day composting.

DSC_0295wlI guess the lonely little guy gave up, because I was gearing up to play, ‘find the bull’ and he’d gone back to what was familiar and had gone through the loading chute and into the tiny pen that holds cattle when we are loading them into trailers. He could have turned around and gone back out, but it must have been a comfort to him. He stood patiently while I opened all the gates that would allow him back into his corral and I left him happily enjoying his grain while I fed the rest of the bulls and the horses.

Do I know how he got out? Most certainly, but I am pleading the 5th.

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