HomeSpunHealers

Our guest blogger today is Carolyn Lee Boyd who is the author of the website “Goddess In A Teapot.”  This is a delightful site that I frequent often. It is rich with wisdom and warmth.  I encourage all of you to visit her site by going to: http://goddessinateapot.wordpress.com/

Without further adieu, I leave you to read an article written by Carolyn Lee Boyd…

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body” -Sir Richard Steele.

I teach a developmental course called Improving College Reading Skills.  My students learn to improve their vocabulary, to recognize main ideas and the supporting details that give them substance, to recognize the point of an argument, to recognize implied ideas, and many other skills vital to reading college textbooks.  The one skill I can not teach them is to appreciate the act of reading.  I find that either my students love reading or they do not.  So, my focus is to help them improve their ability to read so that they don’t become frustrated in their attempts.  Some will never love reading.  I can’t imagine not being able to read or not loving to read, for that matter.  I owe my sanity to reading!

Perhaps I love reading so much because my mother read to me a lot before I was a reader myself.  I loved to hear the stories and see the pictures; I loved our trips to the library to get new books;  but I think I most loved just having time with my mother one on one.  My parents gave me books as gifts, too, big beautiful picture books with stories that I will always remember.  And when I was an elementary school student, my parents bought me a set of encyclopedias that came with some junior classics of literature.  My mother enjoyed those books as much as I did, and we spent hours reading together, plays and short stories and condensed classic novels and poetry.  I didn’t know that I would become an English teacher back then, but I do realize that it was the foundation of my desire to.  I owe my mother a lot for the gift of the love of reading.

I have read articles about the value of reading to children even before they are born.  They can hear sounds from inside the uterus; this is how they recognize their mother’s voice so readily when they are born.  And reading to children is believed by some to give a baby a headstart on learning.  While there is no real evidence that this is so, in some studies that have been done, infants clearly preferred certain rhymes or certain passages that were read to them while in utero.  Hearing what they had heard before birth seemed to have a definite calming effect on the newborns.  So, even if they are not learning anything specifically, they are learning to bond with the sound of their mother’s voices and can recognize the pattern of sounds and syllables and be comforted by them. 

Also, reading aloud to children is the best way to teach them to read, according to The Commission on Reading, funded by the U.S. Department of Education.  This study asserts that reading out loud to children is a better tool for them than the usual methods of homework, flash cards, recitations, or book reports.  I read aloud to my students and have them follow along.  They always understand the material better when I do that, and they seem to perform better doing it by themselves after I have read aloud with them.  And they enjoy reading more when they’re being read to with all the voice inflections that a good reader allows rather than struggling through on their own.  Reading aloud to them as they follow along also holds their attention far better than having them read on their own does.  So, I am glad that I get to read others all the time. 

My husband and I also read to each other.  We enjoy hearing the words, and we enjoy the personal interaction that reading to each other gives us.  We can watch a TV show together, too, but if we want to make a comment about what we’re seeing, it disrupts the show, and we have to pause it and then rewind it to get back to it.  But when we’re reading to each other, we can stop anytime we want, even in the middle of a sentence to share something we are reminded of or to comment on the beauty of the passage.  I believe that television has its place in a harmonious relationship, but reading together is much more intimate. 

The books that are read are as varied as the people who love to read them.  Isn’t it wonderful that everyone can choose what interests him or her?  I love reading all sorts of things from self-help books to romantic poetry.  Nothing entertains me more than a psychological thriller!  I must admit if I feel I “have” to read something that I have not chosen to read on my own, the reading becomes laborious, and I struggle with it.  But if I choose a book because it interests me and it is well-written, I can lose myself for hours of pleasure.  I can go inside the deepest, darkest minds of maniacs, or I can learn how to read tarot cards or discover what attractions I want on my itenerary for a trip I plan to take.  I can enjoy a romantic comedy set in a 19th century English countryside, or I can learn how to make Swedish tea bread or Chinese egg rolls.  It’s all in the choice of reading material.  I can go anywhere or do anything through the magic of the written word.

Am I any smarter than someone who does not read?  Probably not.  Do I have more richness of ideas and wisdom from the ages in my head from being a reader?  Yes, I do.  I remember a snippet of a poem that I learned in my eighth grade English class.  I don’t remember the poet or the name of the poem, but I do remember the truth:  “Words are keys to kingdoms’ treasures.”  I may not be able to travel the world or go back in time or explore the future, but I can through the healing power of reading.

My husband and I love theater, especially musicals and comedy. So, when we recently had the opportunity to see Spamalot, we were thrilled because we got the best of both worlds. One of our favorite scenes in Spamalot was the “I’m Not Dead Yet” skit. If you’ve ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, surely you remember the famous “Not Dead Yet” scenario when the death cart comes around (this takes place during the Dark Ages, mind you) to pick up dead bodies, and one old man, refusing to be piled on top of the heap, keeps insisting, “I’m not dead yet. I feel happy!” Add to this already hilarious skit a song, with the “not dead yet” man singing, “I’m not dead yet. I can dance and I can sing,” and you have hilarity at its satirical best.

My husband and I have adopted this saying between us when a situation arises that merits reminding each other that, indeed, there is life left to be found. For instance, yesterday Jim noted that the small plants sitting on the window sill in the kitchen looked dead. I admitted that I had not been giving them their daily sip of water, which they require at this time of year as the sun gets hotter against the window pane where they sit. They’ll do fine in the autumn and winter months with just a weekly watering, but in the spring and summer, they need just a little each day to keep them green and happy. I looked at the yellow and brown leaves and said, “I’m just going to throw them away and start new plants. They’re just too far gone.” But this morning, as I started to dump one of the plants into the trash can, I noticed tiny green shutes starting at the center of the dead mess. So, instead of dumping them out, I began to pinch back the crispy stems and leaves, leaving just the new growth. And, of course, I watered them well. I showed one to Jim, and using my best British accent, I declared, “I’m not dead yet.”

I was thinking just how true that is about so many things in this world. Sometimes we’re ready to count someone else or even ourselves out when it appears that there’s no hope left. But quite often, we get a surprise when we find out that “we’re not dead yet.”

A friend of mine in the pug rescue group told a fish story of her own after reading about Elvis’ contribution to the demise of our betta fish (see The Good, The Bad, The Pug in The Tao of Pugs). It seems she had to go out of town on business, and while she was gone, she left her husband in charge of her pugs and her betta fish. Worrying that he might not be trustworthy, she left him typed instructions on the feeding and care of the pugs and the fish. Upon her return four days later, all seemed well except with one of her betta fish, Fred. He lay curiously still on the bottom of his vase. When she asked her husband about him, he claimed not to notice anything amiss, until she reminded him that Fred’s vase was in the kitchen on the counter, and not with the other betta fish. He guiltily admitted that he had forgotten about Fred. She kept trying to feed him and coax him to the top of the vase, but he would not move. The next morning, she tried again, but he kept still on the bottom, so she got her fish net out, scooped him out, and released him in the toilet bowl for his burial at sea. Amazingly, when she released him, he started to swim furiously around the toilet bowl. She quickly cleaned his vase, and rescued him from the toilet bowl. He still refused to eat, but by the next morning, he hungrily gulped down four fish pellets! She said the moral of her fish story was when you’re dumped in the toilet bowl, swim for your life!

I think there is a healing message here for us all. Sometimes when things look dead, they’re really not. Maybe some dead wood needs to be removed, or maybe we need a jolt in the toilet bowl, but before we give up, we might just want to join in with a rousing chorus of “We’re not dead yet; we can dance and we can sing, we’re not dead yet; we can dance the Highland Fling … We’re not dead yet, no need to go to bed, no need to call the doctor cause we’re not yet dead.”

I am sure by now that most of you have heard the story about the scientific experiment conducted in the 1950’s with a bunch of Japanese monkeys on an island in Koshima.  The scientist would drop sweet potatoes in the sand for the monkeys, and while the monkeys loved the taste of the sweet potato, they did not like the taste of the sand.  Yet, they ate them sand and all.  Until one day, an 18 month old female monkey ventured away from the norm in her own little community and started washing her sweet potato in a nearby stream.  She then taught this trick to her mother, who also began washing her sweet potatoes in the stream.  She also taught this trick to her playmates, who in turn taught their mothers to wash their sweet potatoes the same way.  Only the adults who were willing to imitate the new behavior of their children learned this social improvement. The rest continued to eat dirty sweet potatoes.

The most amazing thing that the scientists noted is that within a few years, almost all of the monkeys were washing their sweet potatoes before eating them. Not only that, but somehow, in a way we do not fully understand, since the awareness of so many monkeys on that island had shifted, the scientists discovered that the concept of washing sweet potatoes had jumped across the sea to another sect of monkeys who had never witnessed the behavior. The scientists then noted that when a certain critical number reach a new awareness, the awareness is somehow transferred “mind to mind.”  Until that certain number is reached, the awareness remains the property of those within the group.  To me, this is mind boggling, but also a message full of hope.

Considering all of the above, imagine what the world would eventually be like, if each person dared to stray from old thought patterns that no longer serve the whole of society well.  Imagine if every person dared to think that my neighbor and myself are one and the same. Wouldn’t we embrace everyone?  What if we no longer thought in terms of ”me and mine”, and realized that this also encompasses “you and your’s?”  What if we began to understand that your pain is my pain, and your victories are my victories?  What if we laid all selfishness and greed down?   What if the critical mass number were reached and the idea began to spread across counties, across states, and across countries?  Peace would prevail. War would become extinct. Poverty would end. Love would rule supreme.

All it takes is the courage to do something different. The courage to be different, to think different, to behave differently.  It all starts with one.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the whole world resounded: “Let it begin with me.”