So I gave a class.......

Looking for a paying gig, I'd put an ad in a free magazine. A fishing expedition really, to see if anyone out there would hire me. And meanwhile I'd done my morning meditation: welcoming work, good work, meaningful work.

And out of the blue I heard from a theatre contact. And I worked for them on grant applications which I really enjoyed and then they asked me to give a workshop on accounting software and demonstrate as to how it had all gone so horribly wrong for them. I'd done these before but hadn't enjoyed them for a variety of reasons.

But this environment was a Women's Centre, where women are respected and honoured. And right away, the atmosphere from the elevator person to the welcome to the set up to the participants was just so refreshing and something I'd not encountered before in a business environment. Respectful attention, respectful questions, I found a different part of myself, gentler. I used different words, checking: tell me if I'm going too quickly, tell me if I'm reviewing stuff you already know, oh my, it's such a pleasure having a class like this.

Marvelous snacks were spread out at "break".

I felt enormously validated. I'd had some trepidation prior to (hello, an old lady teaching the 30 somethings accounting software?). But that all dispersed just about immediately. It's surprising what a supportive environment is created when respect and caring are present and loudness and assertion and yes, ignorance, and dare I say men? are not present.

I just loved the whole experience. And at the end of it all I was asked if I'd like a retainer for consulting work and to please give some consideration to joining their board of directors at the annual meeting in June.

How life is full of surprises.

All we have to do, as one old shaman once told me, is "suit up and show up."

What Are We Without a Sense of Wonder?

I watch the dragonflies outside, swooping and darting, chasing the mosquitoes. Who eats the dragonflies?

I've never forgotten the seller on Ebay who mailed me a handcrafted towel rack for the kitchen with a hand-drawn map of where every screw went. It still works beautifully and holds towels and potholders and dishrags and my oven mitts. A self-taught man who loved his work.

I am a firm believer in that some things can't be taught by others. At least to a creative level. Try as we might to teach it or to learn it. I think if we truly want to learn something, fire up a hobby, fulfil a passion, we just go ahead and acquire the resources and then the skill and then experiment and do it. This belief comes on the heels of trying to teach software and then Irish rug-hooking and writing and now people asking for more writing classes and Irish knitting workshops and photography lessons.

I should clarify that I am writing about mid- and elder life learning or rediscovery of self.

I think that passion comes first and that whets the appetite for more knowledge. No one has ever knocked on my door with a piece of knitting looking for help. Or with a chapter of a book they are writing. Or with an album requesting a photo critique. No one. I would love if they did. Advertising workshops and then conducting “classes” in creative arts is a waste of everyone's time, I believe. The huge dearth I perceive out there is a sense of wonder.

One can't teach a sense of wonder.

I could riff off further into what I've come to believe on all of this but I'm still thinking about it.