If you don’t know about Free Minds, check out the site: https://freemindsaustin.org/. I’ve taught philosophy most of the years of Free Minds, but last night, we our first online class.
The faculty and staff made a hasty transition to online instruction, like the rest of ACC liberal arts. We don’t run quite the same schedule as ACC, being a Foundation Communities partnership, so in a way, our class last night was sort of a preview of next week: Students and professors having familiar conversations using unfamiliar tech. It was strange and comforting.
Vivé Griffith, our creative writing professor, did an impressive job of translating her very “classroomy” presence (professors will know exactly what I mean!) into the unfamiliar contours of videoconferencing, getting us all engaged with poetry and a tech-assisted free-write assignment. It was just lovely to see her hold an open book up to the camera to show us the poem she was about to read — a juxtaposition of the real and the virtual.
The assignment was based on the poem, “The World Has Need of You,” by Ellen Bass. The free-write involved drawing words from the poem, synthesizing into a theme, and then writing for a timed period about that theme. It was such a wonderful moment of reflection and community (thanks to Vivé) that I’m going to share my own free-write with you.
Suspense
The lighthouse stands between
warning and enticing.
But which to which?
The pedestrian to the sea? The sailor to the land?
There is a suspense in perspective, and
to move between is to find the balance of
a cosmos that doesn't take sides.
The sea just is.
The land just is.
They exist in harmonious indifference.
We build lighthouses.
Be safe, be well.
Set appropriate expectations. Prioritize mercilessly.
But — keep an eye out for magic.
