2004-04-29 - 10:56 a.m.
The Aboriginal art presentation went well. I was disappointed that I couldn't get the tape recorder to work (I wanted to record my lecture), it was frustrating because all you have to do is press the "record" and "play" buttons, but nothing would work and I couldn't even take the cassette out and use a little tape recorder that the teacher had, the "eject" button didn't even work.
But I used that technological failure as an introduction, because we are talking about a people who have survived for at least 40,000 years with almost no technology at all (basically just the boomerang and a few sticks). Along those lines, one portion near the beginning of the lecture was funny. I was going to make a correlation between dreamtime art and a letter to Santa Claus. A letter to Santa Claus is a prayer or wish to receive a certain thing. Dreamtime art is a reverent portrayal of the creator beings bringing into existence all the things that living beings need on the earth, food, water, the land masses, and so on. This is like a prayer, or a ritual, that ensures that these needed things keep issuing forth, that the cycle of life continue. I asked the kids what some of the things were that they had asked Santa Claus for. My God, it was "a game boy with a so and so and something or other gigabyte cartridge," or "an X-box SRG57-PG with a blankety blank hard drive and this adventure and that challenge and the other battle," etc. Each one was some extremely technological electronic computerized thing and it really underscores the difference between our thinking and the thinking of the aborigines. So it somehow made sense that my blasted tape recorder wouldn't work within the atmosphere of talking about aborigines, its breakdown made an important point, in a way. And the joy of the talk was being in the presence of the presentation, not later listening to a canned reproduction of it.
I invited the lower school art teacher to come hear the lecture and he enjoyed it so much that he has cooked up an art project that the kids will do based on the talk. He shared with me some of his ideas for the project and I like what he is planning to do. I think the kids will have a lot of fun with it.
The kids were brilliant...I want to say "as usual," and I do mean "as usual," but somehow these were even more brilliant than the previous ones have been. Even though I do plan the entire talk, it does mutate depending upon the direction the audience goes (there's way more material than I can ever give in an hour talk). The questions and understanding of these kids really took the talk over into a whole new area. The truth is that they really, really do understand the concept that I have introduced into each of these lectures, "what was your dream before you were born?" One boy wanted to express that he knows what the dream is, but he can't say it in words "because I wasn't born yet." What he was saying was what I always say next, "you can't say it in words, because you were pre-verbal, you hadn't learned this language yet. That's why it has to be done as art." I love it when they completely get it, that when I ask them to access who they were before they were born and they immediately have the ability to transfer their consciousness back to that state. After all, they were there, and not all that long ago, either. Who in their right mind would ever think that a newborn child is a completely blank slate? That there are no hopes, wishes, dreams, abilities, and an awareness of ones own special genius in there? What happens is that adults soon forget it, and then shame or convince the memories out of their children. But not these children, who find an adult resonating with their awareness of it and giving them permission to manifest it out into the world, first with art, and then with the actual works of their own lives. They may lose it as time goes on (although, obviously, it is possible to hold onto it), but at least they get a good, strong start.
P.S. I now have my Apple i-Book computer! It just arrived a few moments ago and it is beautiful! I will be able to start working on that movie this weekend. Also, after hating them for so long, I now have changed my tune and love Federal Express. Once I figured out a way to work with them, they have been great. Yesterday, I even chose to ship something overnight air for the school using Federal Express. I called them to schedule a pick-up, but it was too late. However, their computer told me where there were convenient drop-off points nearby which I still had time to use. One thing I liked about the self-serve drop-off point that I went to was that it had an indicator to tell you whether they had picked up yet, or not. I had made it in time, and I could see by their indicator that I could be sure that what I was sending would get to its destination first thing tomorrow morning.
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