I saw a robin today as I walked across campus, a harbinger of spring to come. In a flower bed in front of my home office window there are a host of white and green snowdrops emerging from under those leaves that were not swept away last fall. My heart leaps at the marvel of them. Up here in the north-east corner of this great country of ours, in and around Boston, despite some frigid weeks in December, January and February we have had a mild winter. While all around us and especially to the south and west snowfalls amounts have accumulated above sixty inches (which is our average too),  this year we are at twenty eight and a half inches. Of course we can still encounter some huge storms and maybe will, but on the other hand an early spring is also a possibility. In my native South Africa the change of seasons was not of note. Nine months of summer merged into three months of winter and then, at least in Johannesburg where I lived, the dusty winds of August (spring) heralded the first rains and onset of dry summer heat. Here the spring is a true rebirth. The talons of icy winds and below freezing temperatures slowly loosen their grip on the land and on our psyche. There is an explosion of buds and birds, lawns turn green, the air is warmer on our cheeks, days lengthen, and it rains (a lot). Suddenly the sidewalks are filled with suburban walkers and joggers. More people smile.

Over the past weeks my Philosophy class of college-bound seniors read and discussed Tibetan Buddhist master and Western teacher, Chogyam Trungpa’s book “Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior.” As I read their reflective journals these past days I was struck at how these two-thousand year old teachings caused a rebirth of sorts in my students, an awakening, an opening. They responded with touching honesty to ideas such as “basic goodness”, “being in the now”, “letting go”,  and “drala” the energetic interconnection of all that is. Some wrote of their awareness of their own fears, of how they worry and question, of the endless conveyor belt of expectations they find themselves on, of the material rewards they have accepted as the goal they need to strive towards in order to be “successful” and achieve “happiness.” Trungpa suggests alternative mind-structures, those built of inner balance and harmony, gentleness and respect for self and others. He posits meditation practice as a giant step on the path to becoming a spiritual warrior. As we read the book I taught the basics of meditation and breath-focused attention practices and many students responded positively to the sense of inner calm they can begin to feel burgeoning within.

As Trungpa says “Synchronizing mind and body is not a concept or a random technique someone thought up for self-improvement. Rather, it is a basic principle of how to be a human being and how to use your sense perceptions, your mind and your body together.”

Tags: adolescents, consciousness, creativity, cyberspace, education, Generation E, high school, Janet Levine, meditation, mind structure, rebirth, www.janetlevine.com

We are in that mode again. Either already back at school, or anticipating the change from the summer months to the academic year. This is true for students, teachers, parents and anyone who is involved in any way in the educational system. Come the inevitable cycling of the seasons from summer to fall and we all experience an inner realization of the echoing internal shift of energy. If you are a teacher, as I am, no matter how many years you have been teaching–in fact the longer your teaching career–the more easily able you are to recognize the subtle internal signs of the approaching transition.

This blog could be, but is not about the ways different personalities react to transitions, it is about transitions themselves. Our entire lives are about transitions. We are in the womb, and then we transition to being alive in this physical reality. We breathe, we are alive, and then one day we stop breathing and we are no longer alive. This is the greatest mystery; we are no longer here. While we are here we live in a realm of duality. Every meeting implies a parting. We are born to our parents, but sooner or later we will be parted from them. And before that final parting there are many other transitional meetings and partings–friends, long-term loving relationships, career changes, moving year by year from grade school to college and even graduate school. We all go through so many transitions, even those from awakening in the morning and returning to sleep at night.

Transitions, the way we view them, and the energy we create around them are vitally important for us to understand if we are to live our lives more steadily in a way that can lead to stability, less reactivity and more inner spaciousness allowing us to be proactive and not at the whim of life’s changing patterns.

1) The only constant in our lives is change. Think about this, it is often a startling idea when you first hear it. Minute-by-minute, day-by-day, month- by-month, year-by-year, we change. We grow older, we learn more, we adapt our lives to our own expectations and the reality of those expectations. Medical research tells us that physically every cell in our bodies is changed every seven years. It makes sense then to grapple with ideas of transitions and change.

2) If the only constant is change, then all we have is each passing nano-second. In that moment try to be present to yourself, to the people around you, and to your current situation and  environment. Try and be fully present to every moment; avoid future-tripping,  or looking back with regret and nostalgia. This state of mind sounds so simple and yet is so hard to achieve. Staying present in the moment is among the greatest mind-training challenges you will ever undertake.

Have a meaningful and aware transition to this fall.

Tags: adolescents, Children, colleges, consciousness, creativity, cyberspace, E-model, E-types, education, Enneagram, Generation E, high school, Janet Levine, janetlevine.com, meditation, Parenting, Parents, teacher, Triads Personality Inventory, www.janetlevine.com