What does it mean to sing for someone?

As a Western Mass singer I have experienced the births, deaths, illnesses and hard times of many of my fellow singers. One of the most intensely powerful aspects of Sacred Harp is that of "singing for" each other, our friends, family, and loved ones. I have told a co-worker that we sang for her and her recently deceased mother. I sang for my grandfather when he passed away. He wasn't a Sacred Harp singer, but he loved singing and music and he would have adored Sacred Harp singing. I have sung for a friend's spouse. I have sung in memorial of far too many sons and daughters. It's hard for a non-singer to know what exactly that means, even though it has always been appreciated and understood as a kindness, but I have never felt able to adequately express what it means, and I'm not sure I can now. In trying, I am remembering the sick and shut-in lesson given by Kara Morin at the 2011 Western Mass convention, and how she could "hear us" because she knew we were singing for her in her time of need, and how powerfully that affected her.

Imagine that you are at your worst, your lowest point, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually ... and then imagine what it would feel like to know that 15 or 40 or 200 people are at that moment thinking of you, hoping you pull out of it, rooting for you, cheering for you, remembering you in your time of need. And they're not just sitting there, they are belting out a beautiful, rowdy, joyous song, maybe even one of your absolute favorites, or just the exact one you needed to hear, or one that reminds you that maybe you'll be okay after all. Even if only one or two of those singers know you personally, most of them know someone who knows you, who cares about you, who loves you & wants you to get better, be alright, recover, pull through. Your connection to that one person connects you in turn to hundreds of others who would otherwise be strangers. These would-be strangers don't need to know what your job is, where you live, who you love, what you wear, or eat, or even how you got into whatever situation you're in. They care that someone they care about cares about you. As soon as that singer you know calls a song, stands up and says, "This is for my friend who needs our support," they are connected to you in a real, physical, and very audible (if not tangible) way. You suddenly have 30 people at your back, just like that.

Maybe if you're quiet enough, listen hard enough, you can hear us. Singing for you.

I've been making books! Now you can buy them!




Tiny Illuminated Royals Book




Celtic Illuminated Dolmen Book



Stone Knotwork Very Small Book

Math
started a new textbook, i made a list of some ideas/concepts to cover

Inauguration
"What if we had a Buddhist president? That's what bothers me with all these political things. Why do they always say 'God?' Would they say, 'So help me, Buddha?'"

"Whoa. Big guns... Why are they shooting them?"

Me: "He's operating on a whole new level."
JLynn: [Nods] "Of humanity."

More math
JLynn decided to move on to the next chapter, having finished the first one.
I printed some worksheets.

Literature/Philosophy
Started reading Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, making commentary & analysis. "It's like the Bible. Advice on how to live your life."

Later: acrobatics

Here's the article I wrote for the Education Revolution Magazine

Memetics, Schools, and Education - by Kelly Taylor

We educational revolutionaries are interested in challenging the status quo of one-size-fits-all education. We want to create a paradigm shift. In order to do so, we have to understand what we're up against, be aware of how current paradigms are upheld by “memes,” how the memes we use are perceived, and how we can use memes more effectively. A meme ("meem") is any piece of culturally transmitted information, large or small. They are the building blocks of human social existence.
Much has been written on the topic of memetics, but Richard Dawkins, who coined the term "meme" in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, provides the best definition:

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.
- http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html

It is essential that we as educational revolutionaries learn to perceive and understand memes and memetics, how they function, and their relevance to education so that we can effect change and create the world we want to see.
Like a gene in genetics, a meme's purpose in the realm of memetics is to replicate itself, to move from one host to another; however memes are created by people, often intentionally, to propagate specific ideas and paradigms. Obviously some memes carry large pieces of our cultural makeup, and are made up of lots of smaller memes in what's called a meme-complex. As we encounter various memes, we evaluate them and either accept them and then pass them on to others, or reject them and we don't pass them on.
How exactly can memes be used in this way? Some memes evolve over time, but many are consciously created to support or counter pre-existing memes, and the field of education is a teeming, writhing mass of contradictory memes, each of which is seen as positive by its "host," to use a biological analogy. These hosts are clamoring for "change," "a return to older values," "back to basics," "diversity," "new math," "traditional subjects," "hand-on, interactive," "reform," "integrated learning," "increased success," "better grades," "lower drop-out rates," "higher test scores," and the like. Each of these is a meme complex with layers of smaller memes developed and working together as co-memes.

If we are to truly revolutionize education, we need to be able to take these apart, understand them, and put them back together or destroy them as we see fit for our individual school's needs. We can choose to encourage some memes, such as "consensus-based decision making," "small mixed-age class sizes," or "non-compulsory classes" to mold the future into something that we think will be more positive for everyone.

As a way of looking at education-related memes, let's take apart "school" as a meme complex by creating a short list of memes associated with traditional school: principal, teacher, pupils, building, grades, friends, clothes, classes, subjects, academics, specials, grade-levels, tests, supplies, pencils, chalkboards, books, papers, uniforms, halls, lockers, sports, discipline, control. Note that many of these sub-memes form common phrases or compound words with "school," such as "schoolbooks" and "schoolteacher." Of course each of those sub-memes can be analyzed further, breaking down each idea into many component parts, and doing so may be useful to us, depending on what we are trying to accomplish.

The questions of which memes and how to break them down can and should only be answered on an individual or organizational level (what's right for you or your school in Manhattan may be very different for folks in the mountains of West Virginia), and an exciting component of answering them is recognizing, creating, supporting and propagating counter-memes. They are popping up in the mainstream, from the New York Times running a favorable article on unschooling to films like "Accepted" and "Mean Girls." Dissatisfaction with the existing school system is rampant, and this is an excellent time to work towards creating new memes that promote the idea that we don't just have to take whatever "they" dish out, that we can create our own realities and paradigms.

The best way to start this process is by looking at an issue that is near to us. There have been some hot debates recently as to the best definitions and applications of the word "democracy," specifically in relationship to schools, education and so-called alternative education. People are beginning to really unpack a particularly powerful meme which is undergoing a very sudden and very public paradigm shift. What does it mean that a word that was once positive - "people power" - is now associated with war, bombings, fascism, torture and rigged elections? What does this mean for "democratic" education? All of a sudden the definition of the word has become critical before even contemplating the practicalities or impracticalities of applying and employing a particular decision-making model in their schools.

This is more than an argument about semantics, as if words are interchangeable and should mean the same things to everyone. It's important to recognize what words that are significant to a range of different groups and life conditions in order to choose the appropriate language in the expression of our new and radical ideas. Do we want to push out into the farthest boundaries of alternative education, attracting other radicals and early adopters? Do we want to use more inclusive language to try to bring alternative education to those who would otherwise never consider it? When we create and use memes with careful intent, we can be more secure in our communication, and have confidence in our message.


Project Idea
Make an "idea map" with school in the middle and start making first-level sub-memes. Then list as many memes as you can think of that comprise those sub-memes, as with "schools." It can be an eye-opening experiment in breaking down assumptions. Now do the same for your school or educational program or project. What are the sub-memes of a freeschool? An unschoolers collective? A Friends' school? What sort of "meme-trees" would your students create?

Many of you may not know that JLynn is not only homeschooled, but unschooled. We don't really restrict her movies or video games (we don't have TV), except for age-appropriateness (as defined by us, not the MPAA) and we don't force her to learn anything on any particular time-table or curriculum. So, here is a tiny snippet of "school" today:

so i send jlynn (who will be 12 next week) to bed, tearing her away from her Brain Games book. i tell her she's welcome to do it upstairs, and she asks why it matters if she's just going to be doing the same thing. i tell her it's so i can have alone time for the first time since yesterday, at least knowing where both children are and that they're not killing each other. "plus, then you'll be in bed for the 10pm no-kids-allowed time."

she goes upstairs and comes back down not 5 minutes later, and sticks Shakespeare's Sonnet 20 in my face. "dude! Shakespeare was gay!" I read. we google. we talk about why does anybody care what anybody does in bed. i said "I sleep with my feet on the pillow. Nyah-nyah!" Then we read something that says something about "the social consequences of associating the most canonical author in history with the historically controversial behavior of homosexuality" to which i called bullshit, since there were the greeks? hello?

then i also mention Romantic Friendships and how lots of famous writers had these intense, lifelong friendships (we compared them to today's BFF, OMG! or, rather, contrasted them) and how these people, often women, had these decades long intense relationships with other women that didn't necessarily cross into "sexually 'romantic' boyfriend/girlfriend or girlfriend/girlfriend" type of relationship. "Like Anne & Diana," I said... I think she had an example too, but i forget who.

and then we talked about how they wrote these letters over great distances, and talked about how the concept of distance has changed so much in so short a time, and then that got into how as recently as 500 years ago there were areas of the world where if you left your village you might never get back. and how they got stupid names, like "big hill town." then i said "one of the other ways places got named was through - you're going to learn a new word! - hierophanies. You know like the hierophant?" She nodded and defined him in the tarot quite accurately & succinctly. I said that a hierophany was when there was a manifestation of a deity or God or something. The example I gave was of Bob the woodcutter who cut down a sacred oak "(because oaks were sacred to them for whatever reason, that doesn't matter)" and then his wife spontaneously combusted and burned down their thatched roof cottage. "And to this day the place is called "burning oak town" or something.

while she was putting her wet clothes in the dryer we had this conversation:
"will i still have to be in bed at 10 o'clock when i'm 15?"
"it depends on how annoying you are. if you're like xxxxxxthen yes."
"i won't be like xxxxx!"
"i know. you'll probably have better things to do. governments to overthrow, buildings to blow up, heads of state to assassinate, y'know."
"hahahahah! you're a bad parent."
"i know."

and then i really made her go to bed. then i realized the clanking sound from the dryer was WRONG and discovered she'd left her lip balm, a rock and 75c. (and hadn't cleaned the lint trap). i marched upstairs & handed her the rock & lip goo & said "I'm totally keeping this 75 cents for rescuing these for you and cleaning the lint trap. Check your pockets!"

This is an excerpt from the brilliant copperwise here: http://copperwise.livejournal.com/680972.html

"Sarah Palin et al like to call us "Joe Six-Pack," and they think we like it too. They think it sounds folksy and homey and cute.

Sure. It's a folksy, homey, cute way to euphemistically call us something very close to trashy, ignorant hillbillies. We're just not supposed to be smart enough to realize it.

See, JSP isn't referring to our rock hard abs. JSP literally means "the blue collar guy who picks up a six pack of cheap beer every night after work and goes home to watch Nascar (and probably beat his wife/kids and light a cross on the black neighbor's lawn but we won't say anything about that wink wink nudge nudge)." That is the message that they are trying to get across to America.

We know you. You don't have a thought in your head beyond making sure you have food on the table and beer in the fridge. You want us to take care of you and do all the thinking for you. You're a demographic we've put together based on statistics of race, level of education, and family income. And we think that everyone who falls within those statistics is just exactly the same. And did we mention we don't think you're very bright?"


*Modified summary from the equally brilliant V of Violent Acres

randomized on the intarwebz!

http://logopoeia.com/ed/

this is the first one it spit out when i went to the page:

Audacity of Bliss, said Jacob to the Angel
"I will not let thee go
except I bless thee" -
Pugilist and Poet, Jacob was correct -

*337


and I hit refresh a bunch & got this one

I don't like Paradise -

Because it's Sunday - all the time -
And Recess - never comes -
And Eden'll be so lonesome
Bright Wednesday Afternoons

413

Hello, friends! If you vote for my picture, I can win fame and fortune! The more it gets passed around and posted in places, the better chance of winning I have! And isn't he CYOOOTE?!?!?! Let's see how far I can get it. :) Love -K

Wee books on Etsy for sale!
Steampunk coming soon!!


I also think I'm going to start printing/selling photos. Lalalalala!

I want this as a poster or a Tshirt or something. ♥ ♥ ♥

gives all new meaning to "stop the world, i want to get off!!"

edit: oh! look! you can get it from cafepress!

kiwi: *plots, schemes*