Learning IS
On dissolving into overlap as map
Since writing It’s all matter, I’ve adventured into collaboration with water in ways that have surprised and stretched me. One miraculous layer of learning that I could not have seen alone is the depth of nuance in small words of bridging, comparison, and relationship. Words of between.
through – with – next to – in – as – is
Water has helped me see more, wonder more, play more, and dissolve more inside the between of things:
Learning ___ Play
Play ___ Wonder
Wonder ___ Art
Art ___ Nature
Nature ___ Learning
__ through __
__ in __
__ with __
__ as __
__ next to __
__ is __
More description and analysis about these water samples can be found in the essay, Opening into words, and throughout the March 2023 series “On learning to listen to water as water” in the paid Noticing Matters subscriber archive.
Through this collaboration and inquiry, I’ve found something beautiful. Something of possibility and reverence. Something worthy of living into and learning through/with/next to/in/as/is.
A new kind of map for where we’re going—a frequency imprint for how to create from/as/is our aliveness.
How we see the map expands how the map works. In a way, it is building (from speaking into being / being the effect). Yet it is also not at all building, at least in the ways that building used to be—adding density, carving form, becoming more. It is building as dissolving. Dissolving what and how we see.
What is emerging is already here. We are learning how to see, be, and play within the lifting veils.
Learning – Play – Wonder – Art – Nature
You can find this for yourself.
Sense into the relationship when you say (think, feel, see) any of the following:
Learning with play. Learning as play. Play next to wonder. Play in wonder. Wonder through art. Wonder next to art. Art as nature. Art with nature. Nature as learning. Nature is learning.
Learning is play is wonder is art is nature.
Each bridging word invites unique possibilities—layers, juxtapositions, portals for play.
And something especially potent opens inside the is.
An opening of completion.
A finding of a whole.
Congruence of enchantment—
becoming the spellings of spiders, hawks, lichen, dust.
It’s not of merging (although it may appear as so).
It’s a new kind of overlap.
Overlap as momentum.
Bountiful tension going into and emerging at once.
Pole-to-pole. Side-by-side.
The pull of it. The magnetism.
Breath to water to blood to sky.
Is is where the torus lives.
This is where we gather.
Tunneled webbing of spin.
Stretch, fold, unfold—
ocean is stone is wing.
Vibration of twist, roots thirsting
story is song is soil.
We stay here.
We attune, devote, delight
in/as/is the torus.
We are already the land.
We are already the networks. Mycelium isn’t metaphor.
We don’t extract from the octopus, the moss, or the wind to polish our seeing.
We let them dissolve us and we are awe.
None of this is about holding on.
What is—simple, clear, whole.
This is learning. This is our learning now.
The art of it, the play, the wonder
is alive is already is all.
love+light, Melissa
Is is where the torus lives. Tunneled webbing of spin. Stretch, fold, unfold—ocean is stone is wing.
Playing with (parts of) the torus shape connected with Venn Diagram overlaps. I’ll be writing more about the torus shape in the weeks ahead.
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How might this poetics translate to policy and practice?
Dissolve disciplines.
There’s no more need for prefixes or complicated blending of disciplines. Let multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary dissolve. Let it be simple. It is learning. That’s enough. Learning is inherently all of what was previously held in boxes and labeled with a disciplinary name. We release any mechanization, control, hierarchy. For those inside systems full of such naming and re-naming, notice where you can stop, what you can release: separated units, categories, periods; teachers named by “what” they teach; days designed based on how others categorize, rank, and sort “learning.” Start small, let once piece go, and watch how quickly the rest of it dissolves.
Space, not place.
We release old constructs of school vs. out-of-school vs. formal vs. informal. We design only for LEARNING. Learning is not the same as school, and school is often a place where learning is most buried or distorted. We grow learning as a space of being, play, wonder, art, nature—the unfolding of soulful expression, wide open and free. We release any focus on “fixing” or “improving” places; old mechanization mindsets are compost. As we attune to the aliveness of learning, space for learning potentiates.
Simplify, don’t add.
Watch for where you (and others) tend to add things or where things get cleverly re-named and re-positioned as something else, but in fact, they become something else+. The essence of learning is found when we simplify, strip away, delete, stop. There is nothing to add to make learning more or better. There is only what must dissolve and become compost to reveal learning as what it IS.
Collapse cause-effect.
There’s no “in order to __.” There’s no “if__, then __.” Cause and effect are collapsed. There is only IS. We don’t learn for the purpose of extraction and our learning cannot be extracted. There is nothing to justify or prove or convince. There is learning and our description of learning. Our description of its process—its play, wonder, and artful aliveness—is also what it is, and as we embody our presence in/as learning, our systems, structures, ways of being will align to this.
Collective and whole.
Learning at its essence is collective and systemic. We don’t need to do anything. We are already the network of trees, moss, mushrooms, and soil. We don’t need to build anything or employ metaphor. We are whole and of each other already. We relax, soften, allow, trust, play, bewilder, dance, and dream together. There is nothing of individual effort or working hard or struggle or scarcity. When we hear such stories (or notice such thoughts), we pause to say, “thank you, but you are no longer needed here,” and we sink into the richness of soil that we are already as learning.
