Back to School

This is the time of year when I feel the old tug to go back to school. The lengthening shadows, the touch of color in the tree tops, and the crisp morning air switch on something in my brainstem: a time to hone in and be the student. It has been fifty odd years since I first scampered through the door of Ms. Betty’s nursery school classroom wearing my newly minted Keds, my favorite tie-dye shirt, and toting my Flintstones lunchbox. As the years tumbled by, school days were packed with cognitive formulas that had little resonance for me—times tables, English grammar, and learning the strange sounding capitals of countries on distant continents. Barely conscious, my studentship was blurry-eyed and half-hearted. Then I presumed that education belonged to others—the home room teacher, the lunch period supervisor, the school principal.

But now I heed a different prompt. This September bids me back to the art of learning, to have beginner’s mind, to be the “freshman”—unfiltered and available—and to lean into new-found discoveries. Today I am a student of the great mystery. I study the original energy I am made from—the engine in my blood and the draft of breath that animates my spine. Today I pursue the learning that fires my soul. This learning involves not just cortical tissue— research, memorization and analysis—but solicits every ounce of my being. I am lead on by a great longing to know the world and to learn from every encounter.

Let this be the time of year to channel your curiosity and tap your deepest wonder. So grab your notebooks, sharpen your pencils, and hold true to being a student of the world.