So yesterday I had my first meeting with my fellow weirdos in the Consciousness Studies group in the Individualized Master of Arts (IMA) group at Goddard. Turns out there are not that many other folks in my concentration: Belle who is in her last semester and Tasha who might transfer out. There are a few IMA students without concentrations that might transfer in but it still looks to be a rare breed interested in the interdisciplinary study of consciousness. Here at Goddard that includes studies in four areas: Neuroscience, Arts & Humanities, Social, and Transpersonal. While many people have interests in three of those, few are interested in all four.

I’ve started wrestling with my study plan for the semester but still have no idea how much to carve out and which things to focus on first. Since I plan to do a lit review on scientific articles on meditation, I’ve decided that I need to get a handle on functional neuroanatomy this first semester. Without a basic understanding of brain regions, much of the discussion of fMRI data in these papers is flying over my head.

The rest is up for grabs. I might include sensation, perception, and cognition on the science end as well as some work in non-dual philosophical traditions (advaita, zen, taoism). Also plan to include a silent retreat (my third) and a follow-up phenomenological paper on the experience of it.

The week is flying by and there’s a lot to nail down yet. Before I leave Goddard on friday I need to have my semester study plan complete specifying the contents of 5 work packets.

There are some phrases that seem to keep coming up around this place, for instance, Living the Question and Trusting the Process. These are not new ideas for me but it their prevalence in an academic environment is quite refreshing. While most institutions of higher learning place high value on knowing and articulating what it is you wish to study, here at Goddard we are more likely to be reminded to deeply listen and honor the inherent rerouting created by the process of asking deep questions. One day three, most of us are running around in a state of knowing less about what we wanted to focus on that when we started… and it’s all just fine. What a great place to be, in a community of committed scholars devoted to holding the space for us to explore.

Today is commencement weekend for the Goddard graduates. Over the past several days the graduates have been presenting their theses, mostly in the form of experiential events. Attending these presentations has been marvelously inspiring and encouraging - in other words, at the end of this organic and free process, there is the potential for amazing fruits.

I wish I was able to attend more of these presentations but my body, aching and complaining in more ways I thought possible, has demanded that I close my eyes for far more time than seems reasonable. I’m happy to notice that today the complaints are fewer and quieter and am able to take in more of what’s going on all around me.

I just had a second meeting with my adviser and she continues to be right there with me, asking the right questions while fueling my fire. This afternoon, I meet with my concentration group for the first time - all the other weirdos who have chosen to get a Master’s in Consciousness Studies. Needless to say, I can’t wait!

Yes it does feel a bit like summer camp here but mostly because it smells very green, we’re living in dorms, and we eat meals in a huge dining hall. The center cluster of campus buildings really beautiful and vermonty: lots of barn board, dark brown shingles, and dry laid stone walls. The gardens are brilliant: tiger lilies, cone flowers and much more I can’t identify. There’s even a labyrinth in the courtyard adjacent to the Manor building, a sprawling mansion with carved oak trim and large stone fireplaces. The rest of the campus is a mixed bag of architecture. The design, painting, and sculpture buildings that host the MFA students (not currently in residence) remind me of woodstock handmade houses with funky shaped windows and steeply pitched corrugated aluminum roofs. The dorms date from the late sixties and are painted bright colors. I’ve been assigned to the orange dorm named after Marylander, Hans Froelicher, a former headmaster of the Park School in Baltimore. The Park School, like Goddard, is based on the experiential educational philosophy of John Dewy.

The people I’ve met so far have been astonishingly like me. Seems we all have had the experience of sorting through many disparate interests to unearth our own interdisciplinary missions. The IMA group, as we are known (short for Individualized Master of Arts), is small, but in residence concurrent with the Heath Arts Students, of which there are at least twice as many. The IMAs are divided further into concentrations: Environmental Studies, Language Arts, and Consciousness Studies. I’m in the Consciousness Studies group and this afternoon I’ll finally get to see how many of us there are when I meet with my concentration group for the first time.

There are no teachers here, only advisor/facilitators. For my first semester, I’ve been assigned to advisor Ellie Epp, one of the faculty members that drew me here in the first place. Ellie and I had our first meeting yesterday. In only 15 minutes we covered lots of ground. She’d visited both of my websites, read my preliminary study plan and bibliography, and had already started a list of additional books and papers for me to check out. It feels like a good fit.

Most of what we’d done do far as G1s (we are designated by which semester out of four we are in residency for) has been orienting us to the process, the library, research methods, etc… Tonight we finally start to dive into what each of us have come here to study. Can’t wait.

Music as meditation has been an emerging practice for me. It’s especially difficult to go public with, because, despite the fact that singing is happening, i do not identify myself as a singer.

It feels like the time has come to leave the closet and embrace the fact that music is pretty freakin’ moving, even to heady types like me. Creating music is even more so and in the spirit of abandoning my own fear of looking foolish I am putting some music noodlings out in the ether.

here is a work still in progress. recording the vocal tracks gave me such a hard time. the ones on this mix were recorded while I sang upside down in downward facing dog.
golden slumber…

and here is my first multi-track recording with the oh-so-fun zoom h4. unchained

photo taken at 4:00 pm 11/16/2006 on my street. click on photo for rest of pics.