For thousands of years, man has studied the movements of the stars and planets and deciphered meaning from them. In this search for the meaning of life, we have created stories and employed science to understand our genesis and existence. This is no less true today.
Being a teacher, I translate this directly toward the question of how we should educate our children and improve circumstances for future generations. This question might not seem related to the previous ones, but the line of human evolution is comprised of links between what we think and believe about ourselves, to what we hope for our children and aspirations for future generations. This unseen chain links our beliefs to the past, present, and future and form our experience of life.
How Education Relates to Cosmic Questions
The work of building a school makes visible our spiritual and political belief systems and institutionalizes it outwardly. A school can be a powerful vehicle to better the lives of many others, but it can also subjugate and traumatize whole generations, much like a nuclear family that is dysfunctional. (Think of the Native Americans being forced to learn English ways and customs in schools as an example of how schools have become weapons.) Self-knowledge and the expression of our beliefs in organizations and group systems effects the way we educate, the way we conduct courts of law and government, and the way we provide healthcare, among other institutional functions. If we want to change our current institutions, then we must start with ourselves and our belief systems and apply them to educate constructively instead of destructively.
We must make contact with the deeper, cosmic questions that are at the root of our existence and through conversation, and hone in on a collective definition that our particular community generates. For most of my life I have been asking questions about education. I have explored newer forms of education: Montessori, Waldorf, Sudbury, and homeschooling philosophies. This brought the motivation for starting two private schools, and the motivation for studying all kinds of cosmic topics: astrology, spirituality, meditation, religion. How to improve the conditions of life here on earth has become the main focus of my writing and creative activities and yet our institutional systems are the least receptive to such changes.
The average man or woman still must work to food, clothe, and shelter himself and to navigate the fortunate or unfortunate circumstances he or she is born into. Making time for the search for meaning usually falls far below in priority to survival. We all must deal with the consequences and decisions of past generations in terms of economy and history in our communities. One of my favorite quotes is, “Do what you can with what you have where you are,” and that has been my motto. SO even though life if full of things to be done just to survive, each community, family, and individual still must answer these questions of meaning for themselves. Astrology and cosmic and religious studies are all fields that attempt to answer these.
In the work of caring for one’s physical needs in this life for food, clothing, and shelter, one must also carve out the time to the search for truth for himself, and make meaning of one’s life. If we can do this, the prize of true inner freedom awaits, but very few truly and deeply desire it, and fewer still are really able to sacrifice for it. I have been faced with that dilemma too, sometimes in very painful ways, but I urge anyone to keep searching for truth and meaning with whatever means you can, as if one is an eagle, scanning the land below for the tiniest signs of movement.
Not everyone will enjoy, need or want to go on a hunt for cosmic truth. But, if others find it helpful, I am honored to contribute my stories because ultimately, untold stories are wasted pain and we need one another in order to progress at all. Read more.
Eagle Eye Astrology 