I have the privilege to get up this morning and get ready to go to PRAIRIE HILL. There I find, each and every day, a different kind of wave surging, one that can only gain a momentum of larger and larger height, depth, and breadth.
It doesn't have a specific color (although if it did, it would have to be a rainbow colored wave - it's certainly the most prolific color 'choice' seen around campus!), or even name or label.
It's not a wave like a tsunami that drowns and destroys. Nor is it a gentle lapping at your bare feet. It's more steady and sure than those.
This wave ebbs and flows in accordance with natural laws (not human made). These 'laws' are developmental, and we have no governing power over them. Instead, they are honored, each in their own time. We work alongside them, in collaboration with human development. At times it can be rocky and a bit turbulent, but like a good steward of the sea, we work in collaboration with those waves, knowing that we will again have smooth sailing.
And because the children experience this collaboration with their developmental 'waves', they internalize how to do so with others. So much time is spent at this school learning, practicing, discovering, practicing, demonstrating, practicing, honing, practicing.... repeating the process again and again like the cycles of the ocean waves - never ceasing.
This is a natural wave that is learning how to be fully aware of who we are individually, who the other is as an individual (human and other living beings), and who we are as a collective entity. It's honest, it's insightful and it's active.
This is not a wave of leadership in the way it's often thought and spoken about in learning or other communities. Being in collaboration with natural laws is not often seen as leadership. Yet this is exactly what we must do as one set of living beings on this Earth, in this Universe, at this particular time. The 'leadership skills' we see each day (in mature and not yet mature forms) are more of the thoughtful, collaborative, perspective-understanding kind. It's not an ebb and flow from one side to another, or from forward to backwards. It's an ebb and flow that is cyclical in nature, something that can be worked with rather than worked out, formed, or managed. It's what we hope for in leadership. We go about it from perhaps a different way.
So, while I'm off to go experience this phenomenon (which I won't even label with a name), I wanted you to be aware, as you bring your droplets in this wave to PRAIRIE HILL, that a different kind of wave exists, is supported, and is and will make a difference in this world.
Gratefully,
Chris
