Mind Maps

when the student is ready, the teacher will come.

and usually, for me, more than anything else, the teacher usually comes in the form of books.

i was at the nearby mall with the kids yesterday, because thea needed to buy some supplies for her school projects. and i was just standing by a book display waiting for her to finish, even as i also waited for paolo who asked to run upstairs for a quick peek at the toy section.

i was standing there watching people, and then my eyes strayed to the books and the very big sign calling out to me -- Books for P50 Each Only! Right next to it was a magazine rack with the sign -- Magazines, P60 Each, and it amused me to note how books can be cheaper than magazines now.

the books were old and appeared a bit used, but they were good books, some of them classics even, in mostly hardbound copies. so i started browsing... and, by the time, the kids came up to me, ready to go home, i had already chosen 4 books to buy, with the following blurbs--

1. The Passionate Life-- Stages of Loving, by Sam Keen: "... a needed, well-written and most engaging slap in the face of the 'Playboy philosophy'. its trivialization of the erotic and its nearly exclusive emphasis on sexual proficiency as the definition of love; ... this wise and beautiful essay breathes new life into our thinking about love and sexuality. Sam Keen wants us to regard eros as an impulse or energy that links us to the whole web of life rather than a strictly sexual-romantic thing..."

2. Living In the Light, by Shakti Gawain: "... shows us a new way of life--becoming 'a channel for the creative power of the universe'. The key is in learning to listen to your intuition, and to act on it at all times, even at the risk of going against old patterns, expectations and belief systems."

3. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Liddie Newton, by Jane Smiley: "... The richly entertaining saga of a woman whom Huck Finn would have been proud to claim as his big sister... Liddie is a splendid creation."

4. The Age of Grief, by Jane Smiley: " (This) luminous novella explores the vicissitudes of love, friendship, and marriage with all the compassion and insight that have come to be expected from (this) Pulitzer Prize-winning author..."

***

in my research classes, we have a tool called "mind mapping" in trying to understand where a person is at at the very precise moment their minds are being mapped.

if the books i have just attracted (have become attracted to) now are an any indication, the blurbs might as well reveal where my mind is at now, too-- and the lessons i am ready to learn, or re-learn...