I feel for a process and culture of education

As a musican and teacher who often pays for the privilege of sharing what I truly love, I feel in agreement with holding a culture that honours and supports its contributors - but feel it is an educational process that is part and parcel of valuing and holding a culture, rather than to be imposed coercively.

What follows is addressing this movement of education towards a truly human culture.



My emphasis would be that we deprive ourselves and teach deprivation when we act without integrity - but to understand this, one first has to HAVE a conscious sense of integrated being. This isn't generally part of our education or our culture and so is an ongoing educative experiential process. But the result of coming into a deeper integrity is of uncovering a shared nature that is otherwise covered over by a fearful sense of self that is blindly driven to get for itself.  We generally associate it with personal survival - but it isn't the deeper wisdom that knows how to relate to its environment intimately and appropriately, but a concept of self that substitutes for a living relationship. A defence. A mask. A presentation. As such, this is also a withdrawal of presence. When presence withdraws, shadows come in. This also applies in reverse.


When I came back into the Circle dance scene after a decade or so in the Camp scene, I would have loved to have found some financial support for what I was devoting myself to with a very high degree of commitment - but I generally didn't and haven't. For whatever reasons, the scene in North Norfolk is sparse, the groups are small, and I hadn't felt movement in me to actively promote what I do - (not least because I cannot communicate it merely in terms of dancing folk dances in a trusting and friendly context).

 My sense of the network was that it wasn't large enough to support a career based approach. Rumi says, "If you cant get fed, be bread". So I felt to trust into it as a Calling toward seeding a living culture, by expressing and sharing it anyway.  To surface thought it can often seem that this is like trying to light a fire with wet wood, but in the willingness to take each step in a wholeness and fullness of spirit, I have found it a transformative process - that has given me far more than could be measured in monetary terms. But I acknowledge that I have been able to do this because of living off a lump sum from the division of my estate after my separation from Lynne - and from the very active and tangible support of Cathi, with whom I share life, love and inspiration.

Now if I had to, I could sing in pubs and get a significant return compared to teaching and singing for dance. But the relational quality of singing for dance is Home to me, and I can give myself into it unreservedly, subject only to my capacity to trust and relax.
I don't know if I would be able to be so open or honoured in being so open, in pubs with diffuse attention and a liability to want pleasing rather than to bring receptivity. Perhaps I should try it.

But there is a difference in commercial approaches to anything. Not necessarily a better/worse, but there is a difference - because it is in the market place.  The market place was part of my life as a candlemaker - and in many of the events I participated in, such as festivals and fairs, the market place (market stalls with products and services), played a vital role in the energy and atmosphere of the event. But also it was easy to see how commercial forces distorted this over time, such that the relationship with the people shifted from livelihood to targeting 'punters' and maximising profits. Most everyone 'sold out' as the energy of a movement became lost to mimicking the forms without the feeling.

The modern day market is a kind of war, where consumerism is mesmerically suggested as a way of life in pervasive advertising onto a society who are (often willingly) manipulated and milked. And very often with no real sense of a mutuality of value in their relationship, no real meeting, but getting stuff through an anonymizing business template that again has little opportunity for human culture to express itself. So not surprisingly there is defence and counter measures in 'consumers' - where the thing or service is generally sought at the cheapest price, with no real sense of support, loyalty or relationship with the companies and corporate interests that control the marketplace.

Now there is a lot of residual trust in many, such that they feel for the rules and play by the rules - up to a point.
But there is also a sense of having power where before,  the process of distribution was physical. It was socially acceptable to copy Lp's or radio onto cassette tapes and share with friends. The technology had certain bottlenecks that limited this - but it was pervasive and though possibly strictly illegal, I don't think anyone was ever prosecuted for breaking the law - excepting where passing off or selling as black market copies. Digital distribution has changed all of this to make it much simpler, not only to share a track or an album, but a whole collection of almost anything.  Distribution and access have become decentralized and uncontrollable, so new ways have to be found or new cultural expressions will occur that fit the new 'environment'.

For those of us who have subscribed to the Internet, we can access most music for a very affordable sum - so there is every reason to share links or artist and track information. There are exceptions. I have had to edit a few tracks that I made dances to, so if I want those dances to live, I have to make the edit available to those who want to share the dances.

Perhaps the internet could become a place where one can download directly from an artist - such that they get a better share. Or perhaps the major digital music channels will be the place where everyone goes to, so that is where artists have to sell - and take the terms given.

I would hope that there is more drive to share a love of music in a live relationship with listeners, and less manufacture of music as product with its posing and hype of seeking fame and fortune by 'selling' identity.

I feel that very few are sensitive to live music and many want to get what they want with minimal - if any - real relationship. Such is the mindset of the consumer, which in some ways is that of an infant demanding to be fed in its own terms.

In life we often take for granted what we receive, and see our own little part as if independent and a universe to itself. But life also breaks us of selfishness, and obliges us toward accepting responsibility. We may have to grow to the capacity of giving what we used to take for granted. We may still see this as carving our own path and becoming something, but again life may oblige us to grow to see a larger shared purpose, despite the range of difference of approach or emphasis, and hold a sense of that purpose in everything we do. In this we become holders of a culture, not merely because of resources, but because of a greater love and dedication that expresses as service.

Insofar as I have shared what I might call a truly human culture - (and I have, in various events and moments throughout my adult life), it has been a tangible love and joy embodied in our togetherness. It has to find its spark amidst a larger culture of fear, defensiveness and distrust,  amidst what seems a loveless and untrustworthy world. (Often called 'back to reality' though I challenge that in my own life).

From the perspective that has grown in me, I feel the dance can play a vital part in serving a larger purpose at personal, cultural and planetary levels than might be currently imaginable. Living in the foundations of what may not appear in my own lifetime is like - not waiting for anyone else to get it, before I can live it. But it does have to tune into integrity in order to offer a genuine willingness to be a foundation.

Honouring the source from which I receive - and honouring the willingness of those who join in sharing, is the principle I feel in Jesus' two commandments - (They were not made up by him - but are associated with his answer as his). This expresses a unified alignment of being that restores harmony and a true functionality. In this sense I feel there is Immutable Law that we either enjoy aligned or suffer in a false sense of struggle to be a someone in our own right. Its ok - it isn't an imposed law. We can struggle if we want to.


Unfortunately, human rules serve to undermine personal responsibility, because they program response. When imposed coercively they also breed reaction and resistance. When we are 'made to share' by our parents as kids - it needs be done enough to set a pattern of behaviour, but not so much as to deny and humiliate the child's spirit - or we teach denial of the basis of freely spontaneous sharing.

The mentality that sighs 'there is no answer to this debate' holds true if we were to try to lock down and define life with rules - about anything! But in each specific case in which these things arise, there is a process of discernment that  - if allowed and embraced, will lead to one consciously taken step. It may not be the same answer the next day, because each circumstance needs to be felt anew - otherwise we run on a template - that is … blindly.

It is the mind that fears itself that seeks control, and in attempting so - creates the very conditions that justify itself to itself. It is validated by opposition.

So I feel for a process and culture of education, that includes uncovering our integrity, our trust and our harmlessness. Words are never going to do it - and the last century surely shows that ideology is not a Foundation for a living culture - and nor is the shallow, opportunistic and asset stripping 'Global free market economy' that is currently expressed as an elite corporate power network with puppet nations and politicians indentured to debt and seemingly obliged to be progressively stripped of much of what kept them compliantly cooperative.

Discernment has to begin with not knowing, in order to allow a sense of perspective and priority to provide the next step or decision. I do not know what forms our changes are bringing us globally and locally in terms of our stability and freedom from war, our economy and essential services - but I do feel to come out - as insignificant as that may seem - in willingness to find a better way together.

Thank you for your attention.

In Peace

Brian