And yet sometimes, even in those first weeks, she would break into a fresh and beatific smile, mysterious and glowing. Sometimes there appeared a flash of fire in her eyes that let me know that she was in her power and ready to do battle with dragons of her own making or those set in front of her on her chosen path. It was clear to me, even then, that Carrie was not a simple woman, easy to understand, nor was she ready to simply be put into a box or dehumanized by a label that was supposed to describe who she was and how she ought to act.
While a garden apprentice at Lost Valley Educational Center, Carrie chose to become a student in a weekend workshop we offer here. It is called Naka-Ima, which is roughly translated from its Japanese roots to mean "in the middle of now." This is one of the avenues for personal growth that give a common language and a semi-structured way of helping our diverse and changing community stay in honest and loving communication with one another. The workshops are also offered to individuals from outside the community who want to learn more communication skills and enhance their lives. Carrie attended a Naka-Ima workshop the first week after becoming a Lost Valley apprentice. She fell in love with Naka-Ima, especially in the way that it allowed her to express her various feelings openly and seemed to validate her sense of uniqueness. In addition, she found that the love, affection, acceptance, and growing sense of community made a huge impression on how she saw herself.
As summer came on, Carrie left Lost Valley to explore the next steps along her path. As a BA student in Goddard College's Health Arts & Sciences: Nature, Culture & Healing Program, in Vermont, she had other adventures to pursue in her quest for truth. Since Goddard is a school that wholly supports student-centered learning, Carrie had planned to go to India to study yoga and laughing meditation. She bought her ticket, made arrangements, and was, in fact, ready to take off for India when the events of September 11th gave her cause for concern about what would happen next. How would these events and the global response to them affect her ability to travel, her personal safety, and her acceptance within a foreign culture? Like many students planning to explore the world of international study, she postponed and ultimately abandoned her plans to do her research abroad during this unstable time in our global history.
Now Carrie faced the dilemma of switching horses in mid-stream and looking for what other research she might do that would both fulfill her Goddard requirements while also holding her attention and sense of aliveness long enough for her to complete her BA degree program. It was at this point that she contacted Lost Valley to see if it might be possible for her to look more deeply into the techniques and philosophies behind the practice of honesty as taught through Naka-Ima. Both Goddard and Lost Valley were pleased with her choice of Naka-Ima as her major focus for senior study research and final paper, and gave her permission to proceed.
Carrie wrote about her first Naka-Ima experience, sent out a questionnaire to past Naka-Ima participants, and studied other related personal growth modalities. She participated in another Naka-Ima workshop, this time as an assistant. At the time, Carrie was feeling blocked in the completion of her schoolwork and she chose to utilize the Naka-Ima process within a triad of assistants to face and break through her resistance. I was aware of Carrie's fear of failure around actually completing her degree program and hoped that she would find the desire and will to move forward with her work. It was quite a joyful moment to observe and support her when she re-remembered who she was in her essence and that she really had the strength to succeed in this goal in her life.
At the end of the workshop, Carrie volunteered to become the Goddess of Concrete in a ritual enactment that symbolically reinforces the next steps that students commit to when they leave the workshop. She dressed up to portray a Goddess figure and danced up to each student on the platform, one after another, presenting them with magical stones to hold their dreams and visions for who they were choosing to become as a result of their growth during the workshop. She interacted with each student in a unique manner which reflected an acknowledgment of their own stated commitments.
As a fellow assistant that weekend, I was able to observe Carrie throughout this process. I was particularly interested in seeing how much growth had taken place in her over the nine months or so that I had known her. Certainly, I saw a new sense of personal style with perhaps a softer sense of her femininity, a deeper sense of self assurance, and a willingness to confront her fears and frustrations and come out the other side. Was there also more peace and even a certain happiness, joy, or sense of pride in evidence in her actions and the way she carried her body? It seemed that an observable shift had taken place.
This enhanced sense of Self is a quality that I often notice in someone who has made a choice to take charge of her or his own life and begin to take the steps necessary to mold a life that reflects a deeper inner being. Many young people seem dominated by the images that have been fed to them by the outside culture, foisted upon them by parents, economic circumstances, or lack of seeing any alternatives. Carrie is one of the many people whom I have had the opportunity to watch and support going through this journey of self-discovery. As a past college teacher in a number of alternative programs, I have loved the job of supporting students in their struggles to find out who they really are, what they want to become in the world, and then in creating for themselves lives that reflect those values.
I was very pleased and delighted when Carrie and Goddard chose me to act as a Second Reader for her final Senior Study under Goddard's Off-Campus Healing Arts Program. It somehow seemed a perfect fit for everyone. While Goddard is located in Vermont, this part of Carrie's work was being done here in Oregon. Not only do I live at Lost Valley Educational Center, where she had been an apprentice last year and had taken Naka-Ima, but I have served as a Naka-Ima assistant since we first brought these workshops to Lost Valley in 1996. Because I was uniquely qualified to assess Carrie's writings and reflection about the theory, philosophy, and processes of Naka-Ima, her Goddard Program Director and Advisor have been able to rely on my eyes and ears to pick up the kinds of nuances, needs, and reflections that they might not notice at a distance from her writing alone. In the meantime, Carrie was able to personally sit down and share her joys and frustrations with someone who knew her, Naka-Ima, and the kind of educational process she was undertaking. And for me, the greatest reward was to be able to bring one more strand of my life back into my daily activities. I was a college teacher in Vermont and New England more than twenty years ago and have been hoping to find a way to again serve in this manner with dedicated and self-directed students who want to enhance their lives through further education.
The Lost Valley Apprenticeship Program, Naka-Ima workshops, and Goddard College's Health Arts & Sciences Program all have elements that are designed to bring individuals into more alignment with who they most want to be in the world. It would be hard to assess, in Carrie's case, which of these three deserves the most credit for the subtle, but striking transformation that is taking place within this young woman. Certainly, she herself is at the center of the changes in her life, and yet somehow she has been wise enough to choose an interdisciplinary approach and diverse opportunities that clearly have enhanced her likelihood of creating a life that works for her. Carrie will never be a "run of the mill" woman, but my guess is that she now possesses some of the direction, drive, and power that will give her worldly success while also feeling strong enough to open her heart and share her vulnerability with others. For me, these are ideal qualities to find in a person who wants to make the world a better place, as Carrie certainly does.
It is always a gift to witness and play a part in another individual's transformation, and I feel happy to have become a support person in Carrie's life path. It will be fun to check in with her over the years to see how she chooses to impact the world. Already, she has helped me relearn the fact that what a person wears or the expression on her face does not necessarily reflect the depth of her being. I have been reminded to look below the outer trappings and find the soul within.
Dianne Brause helped create Lost Valley Educational Center in 1989, and has lived here ever since.
Carrie Koester writes: "This is what these programs have done for me--supported me in my search for myself, my direction, my education, my goals, dreams, aspirations. For the first time in my academic career, I could ask myself 'What do I want to learn? What am I interested in? And how can I accomplish my goals?' Because of the support from Goddard and Lost Valley, I am now more empowered to do these things by myself, on my own. They provided me with alternatives in a scary world where conformity is celebrated and encouraged. They gave me the freedom to find my own way of learning and the guidance to find Me. I will soon be graduating and continuing on my path with the tools, support and sense of community that I have gained during this past year. Yeah!"
©2002 Talking Leaves
Summer 2002
Volume 12, Number 2
Ecopsychology, Self and Place