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My son attends an alternative school. A very alternative school.
There are no grades, no tests, not even set classes—unless you’ve asked for them. The “staff” is there for you, but they won’t crowd you. Won’t push you. Won’t make you into something you are not. Along with your fellow students, you hire and fire the staff. You create and vote on the budget. You bring order to the natural chaos of community through a judiciary committee comprised of your peers.
Why would I want my son to go to such a school?
Because I believe that in a “Be Who You Are” community, a soul can flourish. Cut off from the “this is who you are and what you’ll have to do to be happy in life” messages of a traditional school program, you have to do some of your own thinking. You have to make choices about who you are, who you want to be, and where you want to go.
You can do this alone with your feet in a stream or out skateboarding, or through smaller self-created groups like the “Little Girls Dress Up Club” or the “Computer Core.” Or both. However you do it, your community is comprised of others who are also required to do their own thinking and make their own way. And you have to find a way for all those differing ways and perspectives to get along.
Is it the real world?
Not even close. Will it land you a sweet spot in a top college? Sometimes, yes. If that is what you want, you can prepare yourself, ask for help, and know yourself well enough to talk your way into the school of your first choice for higher education. Lots of students from this model of education have. But only if that is the direction you have pointed yourself.
Will you come away as a responsible member of society? Maybe. Maybe not. But even without those traditional promises of a “good education,” this school holds pieces of what the real world could look like—if a real trust in ourselves and each other had a chance to develop.
What makes this model of “education” work?
Community. With no set classroom or grades, the five year olds learn from fifteen year olds. While the age difference is obvious, there is no intrinsic assumption that one student is smarter or better at a particular thing than the other. Some seven-year-olds read at a higher level than some twelve-year-olds. Some fourteen-year-olds are more into playtime than some eight-year-olds.
Passion is the criteria for learning and interest tends to determine success. Because everyone has to get along reasonably well, everyone in the community respects everyone else’s right to pursue different passions (even if they think you are nuts, which often they do). This model works because there is a trust that the individual passions will contribute in a profound way to the overall whole.
The feminine loves community.
I think it is safe to say that this model is a more feminine model of education that the testing-crazed contemporary school system. It is also safe to say that because community is core, this is a place where feminine beauty feels safe to come out.
It begs the questions…Where would you be today if you’d gone to such a school? If you’d been left to your own creative devices while supported by community? Where would the world at large be? Would our increasingly global community be so driven, so focused (always touted as a good thing), and so afraid that if anyone steps out of mainstream materialistic purposes, he or she will be lost, forgotten, washed away down the muddy river of failure (always the threat)?
Or would you have thrived?
Would the world have more balance? Would the feminine have found a place to balance out the beautiful masculine? Would society have dared to make a real space for alternative ideals? Especially ideals like “All who wander are not lost” and “Do what you love—the money will come.” (As ever, here I speak of enough money, not billions at the expense of the rest of the world.)
Just as important, would we all feel as lonely as most people I meet feel? Would we have more options for true conversation, and less standard-issue “one-size-fits-all-soccer-mom” small talk exchanges? (Not that there is anything wrong with that particular conversation, if it’s truly your passion.)
One thing I have learned.
In order for women to feel beautiful, they need to discover who they are, find a way to express who they are, and then (and this is critical) be recognized in community for who they are. From what I know about the indigenous, and what I have seen in my own world, it seems that the cultures which offer this feminine expression and recognition flourish in product, home life and community joy. And the cultures that don’t, go to war.
Finding community is no easy task.
In fact, it is part of the true journey of life. Joseph Campbell’s work in the mythological hero’s journey—which everyone is on, know it or not—offers the age-old wisdom that we must each strike out on our own to find our own way. To paraphrase Joseph, who said this many times and in many ways: “To walk into the forest of adventure, you must enter at the point that is darkest, for if there is a way or a path, it is someone else’s.”
But Joseph also makes it very clear that, after you have made your way and found your reward—that elixir that is not only for you, but for the ailing world—you must complete the return. You must find a way for others to see that not only were you gone (many never even realized it), and that what you have returned with is of value to all. In short, you must find a way to do your part to contribute your journey’s individual reward to the success of the community.
You must contribute what you dared leave to find.
Without that completion, the hero’s journey is considered by Joseph to be left in a “failure to return.” You may float off in your personal bliss for a good while, but the deeper call that set your feet walking will go unfulfilled. And so, in the long run, will you. Because if your community still suffers, so do you. (By the way, if you wonder why I write the books I do, and articles such as these, this is the answer—I’m doing my personal best to complete my return and offer to my community the wonders I was offered.)
starves, suffocates, or has only enough resources to eke out an existence. We are more connected than that. And we are in a world community whether we choose to live in recognition of that or not.
Finding community in a world of options.
There is a strange phenomenon these days. There are hundreds of thousands of listings of single men and women seeking lovers on the web, and many can’t find even one they like. There are a gazillion communities available to us (at least online), but only a few speak to us. Why is that?
Overall, I think it is the reflection of where our culture is on the hero’s journey as a whole. Lots of people are really meant to be out on their own, finding their own way, and that is right for their journey (hence, no one really feels right, because alone, while painful, feels more right). Likewise, there are so many options for different communities because so many individuals have made the journey, caught a vision, and are attempting to complete the return by bring their valuable insights to the world.
Where do you fit?
The beauty of a community like that at my son’s school is that wherever you are, and whoever you are, you fit. Even “misfits” in other communities fit. It’s designed that way. So those who hang out alone at the stream for a good big of the day, are still a valuable part of the whole. Ken Wilbur’s Theory of Everything (no quick read, but a very worth one) tells us we are all whole, even as we are part of bigger and bigger “whole” systems. Some models of community really get that, and in getting it, it works.
Perhaps you cannot find a community like this for yourself, but you can create one. (Did you just get the chills? Hear a far off voice echoing “yes, yes, YES!!?”)
Everywhere I go, women from all walks of life, levels of education, and areas of interest tell me that want to find women like themselves to commune with, but don’t know how. I tell them, if you are out there, they are out there.
Here are a few very practical suggestions.
If you want to visit one of my favorite tribes of awakening people, visit www.zaadz.com. It’s free, like the teenager’s wild zone MySpace, but for the spiritually-minded adult. You can find me there by going to the website, creating a free account, and inviting Robin Rice to “be my friend”—I’d love to hear from you.
You could also visit www.PeaceXPeace.org, form a circle of women in virtually any area of interest (from quilting to marketing), then connect with a like minded circle from, say, Africa. Or some other part of the world. The organization has hundreds of translators, and it is completely safe so women who live in countries that offer less freedom to speak can do so in confidence. There are some 250 circles now, and because it is a good model, that is only going to grow.
Of course, online communities fill only part of the need.
We still need face-to-face community, women gathering in real time and real conversation. Remember, it’s a privilege some women in the world don’t have. We need this because we need a place where we cannot hide what we don’t like about ourselves, and promote only the parts of ourselves we feel confident in. At my son’s school, you can be who you are, but you can’t hide whoever that is. That is valuable because having our weaknesses exposed in a reasonably safe environment is a surefire way to grow!
That is why I lead workshops, and attend them. I need to sit in circle with my sisters. I need to see my face in the reflection of another. I need to see my strengths celebrated, and my weaknesses revealed. I need someone to actually hold me when things are tough, and tell me when it’s looking like it’s time to stop wallowing and get on with my life. I need to look into compassionate eyes and know, for certain, I have been seen and heard. Because then I feel I can get on with it.
Where will you go?
Here’s another beauty of women in community. In community, we are less vulnerable to fears of the unknown future. In times of crisis, even great world crisis, we need others. Not only the masculine (as always, here I speak to generalities, not specific men) to lead us to “defense,” but the feminine to hold our hand, offer us food, help us to rest, and wait out our losses.
We make plans for our children should their schools shut down, but what about ourselves? Who would grow food for you, if the stores couldn’t deliver? Who would doctor you? Who would know how to create fresh water supplies?
And what about great loss?
On a more personal scale, if you face a great loss or illness, who would come to serve your immediate needs? Who would hold you up when your knees buckle and the kids need dinner?
In days of old, your community would gather together, decide what was needed, and each member would contribute. My grandmother’s church was like that, but my grandmother, and my connection to her church community, are gone now.
Does anyone in your neighborhood know your name?
We cannot do it alone. Even in the part of the journey where we are on a wilderness trek, it is good to have someone know where you are and have a lifeline to you should you need it. The beauty of community, and especially women in community, is that lifeline. In times of prosperity, it may seem we don’t really need this. Yet we know life cycles. Change is the only given. When it comes, do you know where your people are? Do they know where you are?
This Month’s Shapeshift
Close your eyes, and imagine the women you commune with. Who is there? Who is missing? Imagine yourself someone so fully connected, you are seamlessly meeting the needs of your community, and the community is meeting your needs. If you don’t have a strong community, imagine calling your people to you. Imagine them wanting you, needing you, seeing you, trusting you, believing in you, honoring you.
Imagine yourself taking your place in a circle of women who have the kind of visions you do. Also imagine others joining you to fill empty spaces where no one has yet found a strength. Imagine serving these women on a beautiful tray, offering them your bounty. Imagine them accepting, thanking you, then taking a turn in serving you. Imagine you thanking them, and the circle complete.
Send this “imagination” wish out into the universe, and remember that every wish is heard. Keep imagining, keep wishing, and keep taking action when an option for action arises. They will come.
Namaste My Friends!
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