2023 (#101) : Montessori , Malaguzzi , Emerson , Nietzsche , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman , ee cummings , Jeremiah 34:2-3 , Gospel of Thomas , Derrida , Mark 1:18 , Georges Bataille

We must
free childhood from repression that weighs upon it

— Montessori

Overactivity on the part of the adult is a risk factor. The adult does too much because he cares about the child; but this creates a passive role for the child in her own learning.

—- Malaguzzi

He spoke, and words more soft than rain 

Brought the Age of Gold again: 

His action won such reverence sweet, 

As hid all measure of the feat.

— Emerson

Almost no phrase wherein profundity and playfulness do not tenderly hold hands.

—– Nietzsche 

The last remnant of illusion, the first touch of the real. To say: I am only the witness is both false and true: false because of the ‘I am’, true because of the witness. It is better to say: ‘there is witnessing’. The moment you say: ‘I am’, the entire universe comes into being along with its creator.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman 

or if it talks about you somewhere behind your back it makes your neck feel pleasant and stoopid and if dead says may i have this one and was never introduced you say Yes because you know you want it to dance with you and it wants to and it can dance and Whocares

— ee cummings 

Go and speak to King Zedekiah of Judah …

—- Jeremiah 34:2

His disciples said to him, “When will the repose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?” He said to them, “What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.”

— Gospel Of Thomas 

Without writing, un-writing, the unwritten switches over to a question of reading on a board or tablet which you perhaps are. You are a board or a door; we will see much later how a word can address itself, indeed confide itself to a door, count on a door open to the other.

—- Derrida

At once they left their nets and followed him.

— Mark 1:18

 Plants rise in the direction of the sun and then collapse in the direction of the ground.

—- Georges Bataille 

As unrepenting Nature leaves Her every act.

—- Emerson

eye to eye and speak with him face to face

— Jeremiah 34:3

Duality lasts only as long as it is not questioned.  

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman 

2023 (#100) : Malaguzzi , Emerson , ee cummings , Georges Bataille , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman , Yirmeyah 33:3 , Gospel Of Thomas , Winnicott

It is necessary to give an immediate response to a
child. Children need to know that we are their
friends, that they can depend on us for the things they
desire, that we can support them in the things that
they have, but also in the things that they dream
about, that they desire.

— Loris Malaguzzi

The sun set; but set not his hope:

Stars rose; his faith was earlier up:

Fixed on the enormous galaxy,

Deeper and older seemed his eye

—- Emerson

Now is the time when all occasional things
close into silence,only one tree,one
svelte translation of eternity

— ee cummings 

It is impossible for her to know whom she will rediscover when I hold her

—- Georges Bataille 

 The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it. The jnani knows neither birth nor death; existence and non-existence are the same to him.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman

3 ‘Call out to me,
and I will answer you —
I will tell you great things,
hidden things of which you are unaware.

—- Jeremiah/Yirmeyah 33:3

“If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’, say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.’ If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’, say, ‘We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your father in you?’, say to them, ‘It is movement and repose.'”

— Gospel Of Thomas

Edmund placed some small train parts on the table and
was arranging them and making them join up and relate. He
was only two feet away from his mother. Soon he got onto her
lap and had a short spell as a baby. She responded naturally
and adequately. Then he got down spontaneously and took up
playing again at the table. All this happened while his mother
and I were heavily engaged in deep conversation. 

—- D.W. Winnicott

2023 (#99) : Montessori , Malaguzzi , ee cummings , Georges Bataille , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman , Gospel Of Thomas , Tehillim 147:5 , John 3:34 , Nietzsche

The solution is found in the child, whom we can call the instrument of the adaptability of humanity. 

—- Montessori

Something will start to grow inside the child and
suddenly what is happening in the school will move
in that direction.

— Malaguzzi 

silence is the blood whose flesh
is singing

— ee cummings 

 The brain is the parody of the equator.

— Georges Bataille 

There must be love in the relation between the person who says ‘I am’ and the observer of the ‘I am’…

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj /Maurice Frydman

   “If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain, ‘Move Away,’ and it will move away.”

—- Gospel of Thomas 

 his understanding is beyond measure.

—- Tehillim 147:5

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God[i] gives the Spirit without limit.

— John 3:34

O Heaven above me. pure and deep! You abyss of light! Seeing you, I tremble with godlike desires. To throw myself into your height, that is my depth. To hide in your purity, that is my innocence.

Nietzsche — Trans. W. Kaufmann

O sky above me! O pure, deep sky! You abyss of light! Gazing into you, I tremble with divine desires.

To cast myself into your height — that is my depth! To hide myself in your purity — that is my innocence!

Nietzsche — Trans. R.J. Hollingdale

2023 (#98) : Jerome Bruner , Mashal 15:30 , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman , ee cummings , Georges Bataille , Gospel of Thomas , John 4:35 , Derrida , John Ashbery , Mashal 11:17

We teach a subject not to produce little libraries on that subject, but rather to get a student to think … for himself, to consider matters as a historian does, to take part in the process of knowledge–getting. Knowing is a process, not a product. 

— Jerome Bruner

Light in a messenger’s eyes brings joy to the heart,
and good news gives health to the bones.

—- Proverbs/Mashal 15:30

The reward of self-knowledge is freedom from the personal self.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman

deliberate groping ocean fondled o’er
the warm long flower of unchastity

— ee cummings

The planetary systems that turn in space like rapid disks, and whose centers also move, describing an infinitely larger circle, only move away continuously from their own position in order to return it, completing their rotation.

— Georges Bataille 

Jesus said, “Become passers-by.”

—- Gospel of Thomas

The known is always on the move, it changes, it has no shape of its own, no dwelling place. The knower is the immutable support of all knowledge; Each needs the other, but reality lies beyond. The jnani cannot be known, because there is nobody to be known.

—- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman

irrevocable nakedness
to strike the young world into smoking song-
as the first star perfects the sensual dome
of darkness,and the sweet strong final bird
transcends the sight

—- ee cummings

I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white with harvest.

— John 4:35

One must see, at first sight, what does not let itself be seen. And this is invisibility itself. For what first sight misses is the invisible. The flaw, the error of first sight is to see, and not to notice the invisible.

— Derrida

There is no profile in the massed days ahead. They are impersonal as mountains whose tops are hidden in cloud. The middle of the journey, before the sands are reversed: a place of ideal quiet. 

—- John Ashbery

Those who are kind benefit themselves

—- Proverbs/Mashal 11:17

2023 (#97) : Malaguzzi . Nietzsche , ee cummings , Mashal 8:22 , Georges Bataille , Derrida , John 1:16 , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman , Gospel of Thomas

School is not at all like billiards. When you play
billiards you push the ball with a certain force and it
hits the table and bounces off; there’s a definite way
the ball will go, depending on force and direction.
Children are not at all like this, predictable. But
sometimes schools function as if they were; these are
schools with no joy.

• Malaguzzi

Art reminds us of states of animal vigor; it is on the one hand an excess and overflow of blooming physicality into the world of images and desires; on the other, an excitation of the animal functions through the images and desires of intensified life; –
an enhancement of the feeling of life, a stimulant to it.

— Nietzsche

continuous intercourse-through skies and trees
the lilac’s smoke the poppy’s pompous fire
the pansy’s purple patience

—- ee cummings

I was there when he set the clouds above, when he
established springs deep in the earth. …And when he marked off the earth’s foundations, I was the architect at his side. I was his constant delight, rejoicing always in his presence.

• Mashal  8:22

the dice of sun-birds 

— Georges Bataille 

The trace is the differance which opens appearance

and signification. Articulating the living upon the nonliving
in general, origin of all repetition, origin of ideality …

• Derrida

Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given

• John 1:16

There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real — which you are, anyhow. The problem is only mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren’t any.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman 

be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

—- Gospel Of Thomas

slowly in life’s serene perpetual round

a pale world gathers comfort to her soul,
hope richly scattered by the abundant sun
invades the new mosaic of the ground

—- ee cummings

2023 (#96) : Malaguzzi , Mashal 11:17 , ee cummings , Derrida , Mark 10:14 , Gospel Of Thomas , Georges Bataille , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman , Tao Te Ching

The child’s intelligence is still today something in which we have to believe: we have to believe that the child is a bearer and constructor of his own intelligence. If we are ready to accept this, then we will modify many of our relations with [him], many of our languages, and school will also in some way adapt to a child who is a constant provider of tests, requests and intelligent research. I would also say that this work and this passion for searching, in some way clearly mobilises everything: the whole person, the whole child.

• Malaguzzi

Those who are kind benefit themselves.

• Mashal/Proverbs 11:17

And still the mad magnificent herald Spring
assembles beauty from forgetfulness

— ee cummings 

the sacred and the being-to-be-translated do not lend themselves to thought one without the other. They produce each other at the edge of the same limit.

• Derrida

Let the children come to me, don’t stop them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

• Mark 10:14

“When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the son of the living one, and you will not be afraid”

— Gospel of Thomas 

The void frees me from what attaches me. In the void there is nowhere to stop. 

— Georges Bataille 

 the “play” of a certain excess in relation to any
mechanical movement, oriented process, path traced in advance, or teleological
program, would be the very condition of the step [pas] , or even
of the experience of pathbreaking, route (via rupta), march [marche] , decision,
event: the coming of the other, in sum, of writing and desire.

• Derrida

It is the witness that works on the person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and future.

—- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj / Maurice Frydman

it gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.

• Tao Te Ching

2023 (#95) : Malaguzzi , Bereshit 1:2 , Georges Bataille , Tehillim 143:10 , ee cummings , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman , Gospel of Thomas , Mark 13:37 , Tao Te Ching

All of this is a great forest. Inside the forest is the
child. The forest is beautiful, fascinating, green, and
full of hopes; there are no paths.

—- Malaguzzi 

a wind from God sweeping over the water

—- Bereshit/Genesis 1:2

Ever since sentences started to circulate in brains devoted to reflection, an effort at total identification has been made, because with the aid of a copula each sentence ties one thing to another; all things would be visibly connected if one could discover at a single glance and in its totality the tracings of Ariadne’s thread leading thought into its own labyrinth.

—- Georges Bataille

Let Your gracious spirit lead me on level ground.

• Psalm/Tehillim 143:10

over the infinite breast in bright degrees,
whose pillow is the graces and the hours

—- ee cummings

all this will happen in the natural course of events, for destiny must fulfil itself; you will go through it without resistance, facing tasks as they come, attentive and thorough, both in small things and big. But the general attitude will be of affectionate detachment, enormous goodwill

—- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman

Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, “These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.” They said to him, “Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?” Jesus said to them, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom.”

—- Gospel of Thomas 

What I say to you, I say to everyone: “Watch!”

• Mark 13:37

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

• Tao Te Ching

2023 (#94) : Malaguzzi , Montessori , D.T. Suzuki , Gospel Of Thomas , Georges Bataille , Mashal 9:1-2, 2:9-10 , ee cummings , Mathew 6:10

The ability to enjoy relationships and work together
is very important. Children need to enjoy being in
school, they need to love their school and the interactions that take place there. Their expectations of
these interactions is critical.
It is also important for the teachers to enjoy being
with the other teachers, to enjoy seeing the children
stretch their capacities and use their intelligences, to
enjoy interactions with the children. Both parts are
essential.

• Malaguzzi

Don’t
you begin to see in this behaviour that animals sacrifice
themselves for the welfare of other types of life, instead
of trying to eat as much as possible merely for their own
existence or upkeep ? The more one studies the behaviour
of animals and of plants, the more clearly one sees that
they have a task to perform for the welfare of the whole.

• Montessori

But this so-called relative level is not really relative; it
is the borderland between the conscious level and the uncon-
scious. Once this level is touched, one’s ordinary consciousness
becomes infused with the tidings of the unconscious. This is
the moment when the finite mind realizes that it is rooted in
the infinite. In terms of Christianity, this is the time when the
soul hears directly or inwardly the voice of the living God.
The Jewish people may say that Moses was in this state of mind
at Mount Sinai when he heard God announcing his name as
“I am that I am.”

• D.T. Suzuki

Mary said to Jesus, “Whom are your disciples like?” He said, “They are like children who have settled in a field which is not theirs. When the owners of the field come, they will say, ‘Let us have back our field.’ They (will) undress in their presence in order to let them have back their field and to give it back to them.

— Gospel Of Thomas 

But I had laughed — boyishly happy on the square outside, looking up at the cathedral that under the July sky dazzled me. 

— Bataille 

Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up[a] its seven pillars.
2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.

• Mashal/Proverbs 9:1-2

attain such great simplicity as to relate that love to an earthly love, echoing it to infinity.

—- Bataille 

Then you will understand righteousness, justice,
fairness and every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart,

Mashal 2:9-10

Myself, in the appearance of a person I am in love with, the sound of a spoon striking a bowl, of the void. 

— Bataille 

Wind beautifully who wanderest
over smooth pages of forgotten joy
proving the peaceful theorems of the flowers

—- ee cummings

your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.

• Mathew 6:10

2023 (#93) : Malaguzzi , Lella Gandini , Heidegger , ee cummings , Isaiah 55:12 , Gospel of Thomas , Georges Bataille , Bereshit 2:10 , Jung , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Maurice Frydman

Overactivity on the part of the adult is a risk factor. The adult does too much because he cares about the child; but this creates a passive role for the child in her own learning.

• Malaguzzi

Malaguzzi said very clearly that nothing in the school should happen
without joy.

• Lella Gandini

Each one of us needs to be able to play with the things that are coming out of the world of children. Each one of us needs to have curiosity, and we need to be able to try something new based on the ideas that we collect from the children as they go along. Life has to be somewhat agitated and upset, a bit restless, somewhat unknown. As life flows with the thoughts of the children, we need to be open, we need to change our ideas; we need to be comfortable with the restless nature of life.

• Malaguzzi

In it’s essence, language is neither expression nor an activity of man. Language speaks. Accordingly, what we seek lies in the poetry of the spoken word.

• Heidegger

gently

(very whiteness:absolute peace,
never imaginable mystery)

descend

— ee cummings  

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

• Yeshaʿyahu — “God Is Salvation” — Isaiah 55:12

“Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being.”

— Gospel Pf Thomas

In these incomprehensibly transparent states, the mind remains inert and intensely lucid, free. The universe easily passes through the mind. 

—- Bataille 

a river watering the garden flowed from Eden ; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is Pison; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The name of the second river is Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

• Bereshit/Genesis 2:10

‘This Eden, they say, is the brain. ‘ Three of the rivers of Paradise are sensory functions (Pison = sight, Gihon = hearing, Tigris = smell), but the fourth, the Euphrates, is the mouth, ‘ the seat of prayer and the entrance of food.’

• Jung

The silence is one and without it the words could not have been heard. It is always there — at the back of the words. Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it.

—- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj/Maurice Frydman 

2023 (#92) : Vivian Paley , Malaguzzi , Heidegger , Mark 10:14 , Gospel of Thomas , John 7:37 , Emerson , ee cummings , John 4:38 , Nietzsche , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Bereshit 1:3

We do more than tell our stories; we also act them out. The formal storytelling
and acting that often arise out of and run parallel to the children’s fantasy play
have become a central feature of our day. 

• Vivian Paley

There are many things that are part of a child’s life
just as they are part of an adult’s life. The desire to
do something for someone, for instance. Every adult
has a need to feel that we are seen/observed by
others. (Observing others is also important.) This is
just as true for children as for adults. Therefore, it’s
possible to observe, to receive a lot of pleasure and
satisfaction from observing in many different ways.When the child is observed, the child is happy — it’s
almost an honor that he is observed by an adult. On
the other hand, a good teacher who knows how to
observe feels good about himself because that person
knows that he is able to take something from the
situation, transform it, and understand it in a new
way.-

• Malaguzzi

Teaching is even more difficult than learning. We
know that; but we rarely think about it. And why is teaching
more difficult than learning? Not because the teacher
must have a larger store of information, and have it always
ready. Teaching is more difficult than learning because
what teaching calls for is this: to let learn. The real teacher,
in fact, lets nothing else be learned than-learning. His conduct,
therefore, often produces the impression that we
properly learn nothing from him, if by “learning” we now
suddenly understand merely the procurement of useful information.
The teacher is ahead of his apprentices in this
alone, that he has still far more to learn than they-he
has to learn to let them learn. The teacher must be capable
of being more teachable than the apprentices.

• Heidegger

Let the children come to me, don’t stop them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

• Mark 10:14

Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”

—- Gospel of Thomas

streams of living water will flow from within him

• John 7:37

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

• Emerson

softly at whose gate smile
always the chosen
flowers of reminding

—- ee cummings

I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.

• John 4:38

to live life among fragile and absurd things …

—- Nietzsche 

The person is of little use. It is deeply involved in its own affairs and is completely ignorant of its true being. Unless the witnessing consciousness begins to play on the person and it becomes the object of observation rather than the subject, realisation is not feasible. It is the witness that makes realisation desirable and attainable.

—- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”

—- Gospel of Thomas 

ecco a letter starting”dearest we”
unsigned:remarkably brief but covering
one complete miracle of nearest far

“i cordially invite me to become
noone except yourselves r s v p”

—- ee cummings

And Elohim said, Let there be light: and there was light

• Bereshit/Genesis 1:3