Back to "Scholae"
As many (including my own teens) transition back to school, I am thinking about learning. This summer I learned a little something about the origin of the word school. This word school comes from the Ancient Greek word skhole (pronounced scoe-lay) meaning leisure, rest.
At one point in history, it seems learning was something that allowed for receptive rest, a restful, time of leisure, set apart from the rigors of work life. A time that allowed one to kick back, experience the pace of dreaming and wonder. Imagine that.
I understand this to be a reminder: we learn best when we are receptive, able to be still, to find rest in knowledge and experiences. Rather than an environment in which we are constantly stimulated, working to attain an ever growing list of achievements, with information coming from an endless tap, this is an environment in which the demands and pace of the outside world of work can be paused, where learning might be a restful privilege. Imagine.
I am a teacher and so I think about learning often. I am also a person who has bought a lot of messages of achievement—how many boxes checked, how much information learned, how performance appears based on scores.
Learning and school, it seems, were once associated with the kind of leisure that mirrors the work of a garden. Here, while the ground is nurtured and tended, the tiniest seeds and seedlings do their work. This work appears as a passive stillness for such a long time until, given the right circumstances, some fruit appears. This is not leisure as I sometimes imagine it, as a time of checking out from the non-virtual world. Rather, this is sacred time, a time separate from daily rhythms, a time in which we might consider, contemplate, meditate, receive a good word.
I do not wish for the sweetness of doing nothing to end. And perhaps it doesn’t have to. I am aware of how the constant drive for more has made for a loss of so much that is essential. I wonder, even for those of us not sitting behind a formal wooden desk, might the start of this school year be a reminder of restful learning instead? Might I prepare the ground of my being to receive, to allow time for breath and stillness? Could it be possible that we might understand more by filling with less?
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Just As The Calendar Began to Say Summer by Mary Oliver I went out of the schoolhouse fast and through the gardens and to the woods, and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught — two times two, and diligence, and so forth, how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth, machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth. By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember the way the river kept rolling its pebbles, the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank, the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.
Rest, receptivity, stillness, contemplation and discernment. These are words that hold my understanding of what the yoga training I offer can embody. I have evolved and so has this training through 18 years of teaching. I have discovered ever more accessibility, honoring attendees’ needs and my own; honoring tradition and the modern world as it is and I see this upcoming training, starting October 2024-April 2025, as the last time I will offer the 200 hour Yoga Training (at least for the foreseeable future).
Beginning October 2024, we’ll meet every Wednesday night (in-person in Shepherdstown, WV or online via Zoom) from 6:30-8:30. Additionally, we’ll meet one partial weekend each of the training months, Friday night and Saturday all day, in Shepherdstown. Participants will be offered additional assignments outside the in-person time, including a 10 hour service project. Payment plans and scholarship options are available.
If you’ve wanted to study this work, to get to know your body and how to move and practice with greater ease and accessibility, learn practices to balance and regulate your nervous system, as well as a philosophy of observation and discernment, in a learning environment that includes rest, reach out to me. We can talk about your questions, concerns, and if this program is the right investment for you. Email jalayoga.christa@gmail.com or call/text 401-440-0279.
