Stagtine, 7. Earth Education

Section I, Chapter 4

To view a full (slowly released) Table of Contents to Stagtine, my latest book made available to you all in both paperback, digital, and audiobook formats, click here!

---

“Our childhood was a lesson in the illimitable freedom of the human heart contained within the heart of the world around us, as us, in us. It was a world built and carried by magic and memory.”

I am the second of four, rambunctious children. One of the unintended virtues of our childhood was that it produced four very different people—one is a professor, one is a medical professional, one is a renowned portraiture artist, and I am a simple something. I spent the majority of my childhood either playing sports or playing in the mud.

We were raised in the last, rural remnant just south of Cleveland, Ohio. Thirty-acres of rolling forests and little meadows was our life’s playground and play we did. While not agricultural, our family believed in time spent outdoors and time spent in the dirt. We were kicked out of the house every morning, ill clad and well loved, and would return only for lunch, a quick hug, or some dry and warm clothes.

We were homeschooled by my mother who well understood her own intellectual shortcomings. She was reared by a poverty decimated immigrant village in the heart of the dying city of Cleveland. She never went to college. She barely graduated from high school. Her mother, my dear grandmother, never learned to drive a car.

“Zechciej dola,” my grandmother would say, lovingly harsh, when dinner was set. I have no idea what it meant, it was never translated for me, and the language of origin was always unknown—some combination of Polish, Lithuanian and Slovenian. But we understood it clearly enough: sit down, now, eat, now, and be quiet. Dola is the Slavic goddess of the home, maybe that had something to do with it.

My mother was, alongside our father, dedicated to giving us the world—a map to finding the keys to it at least. In place of lessons, she opened our eyes. In place of education, she opened our hearts. My mother believed, ultimately, that a love of learning and the self-knowledge of how one, in particular, learns best is the key to the world: the secret pathway for enlightenment in the true sense, the deepest, actual, living sense.

“To know the answer is never good,” she would tell us as she walked with us under the maple grove. “We must be curious. We must ask questions. Then, we must be silent, patient, but irreverently demanding of a response.”

---

To keep reading, you can transition today to a paid member for 50% off and receive a Paperback copy of Stagtine at no extra cost! You’ll also be given access to our twice-monthly, live Zoom call!

---