Beauty, Obligation, Wildness - Episode 257
Could we live inside definitions of 'success' and 'intelligence' that are wildly more life-giving, generous, and generative than the ones we've been handed?
And what if we found a way to cultivate ourselves so that we become the ones who stand - in our lives, in our ways of observing life, and in our practices - who choose to cultivate virtues that have us, and the people around us, step into the fullness of our lives?
In this conversation, in the week of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, we find ourselves reflecting on what it is to step into our own self-sovereignty and to bring ourselves as gifts to one another.
This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Here's our source for this week:
Beauty, Obligation, Wildness
The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.
What can educators do to foster real intelligence? We can attempt to teach the things that one might imagine the earth would teach us: silence, humility, holiness, connectedness, courtesy, beauty, celebration, giving, restoration, obligation, and wildness.
David W. Orr
Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash