Peacebuilding (May 2007)

Peacocks AGAIN!

The Universe is telling me something through peacocks, and I just need to figure out what. There are multiple resident peacocks here at Royal Roads, and unsurprisingly, from past experience, one of them has taken a fancy to me. It fans out its tail as I pass by and makes attempts to follow me. Do I have peacock pheromones or something?

Anyway, our day began in the Castle Drawing Room (if you have seen X-Men, you know where I am studying... Xavier's school for Mutants. Appropriately enough.) The setting is astonishingly beautiful, and the drawing room looks out across the gardens to the sea beyond. There is a real quiet here, a green lively stillness that envelops us.

Our lead instructor, the head of this program, is named Paz Buttedahl. Born in Chile in '42, she is one of many girls of that era named Peace, as we learned when we opened the icebreaking with an introduction of ourselves and a telling the story behind our names. It's a lovely way to get to know people -- named for parents, aunts, uncles, friends, events... and last names that were changed several generations back to make it easier to get around in the 'new world' after immigration...

My own name stories are ones I love so it was fun to tell them: First, envision my parents walking along a beach discussing names in Summer 1975. Mother tosses around boys names (Christopher, Aaron), Father insists SHE IS A GIRL. Long silence. Mother notices colour of dusk sky is like Peach Melba and the word "melba" escapes her lips. Seconds later, Father says "Melanda!" and there it ends. There is no other name discussed from that point on, and three months later I am born and given my name. I have often thought "gosh I'm glad I DID turn out as a girl... imagine being a boy named Melanda!". Only to end up in the South Rift Valley in Kenya at age 31 and find that it's quite a common name in the Maasai tribe. FOR BOYS. (As I wrote in another Kenya tale.) As I type just now I am sitting outside at a picnic bench/table and remembering the day. My thoughts are punctuated by peaocks' honking calls.

We were welcomed with a performance on a closed brass drum, apparently something invented by Swiss instrument makers in recent years. Followed by a live telling of a Buddhist fable about the interconnectedness of all things (in which a crow poops on the head of a high Brahman priest and a sleepy watch girl causes the royal elephants to get burnt, and crow genocide erupts until a bodhisattva in crow form visits the king to sort it out. Long story, for another day.)

But don't get the wrong idea -- this is not a granola flake class. The readings list on International Law, Post-Cold-War Conflict, and umpteen trillion articles and government policy papers (some of 300-plus pages) is no picnic and will be working my brain fully. But we also had time to hike the trails down to the dock, listen to a reading (an excerpt from a poem called "Let Your Life Speak" and some of Parker Palmer's writings -- he is an unorthodox and highy successful educator in the US, from what I know) and then do some journalling as we sat in the sun with the sound of splishy water critters below and chattery winged things flying 'round above.

We also did some 'deep listening' in pairs, sitting in silence for 3 minutes while the other person first "unpacked" by telling all about what he or she is leaving behind in coming here. Then about what he or she is bringing along.

I discovered as I spoke that I am in some ways leaving behind a whole life. A beautiful life I have loved immensely. A life well lived. A family of several hundred people I came to know by working with them. A decade of growing into my own skin. And I also learned that I'm taking the heart of that with me, too. The love, friendship, learnings and community -- all are alive and well inside me.

And what will I bring back when these three weeks are done? How will I integrate it into my life? I'm excited to find out, and a bit nervous too. I am just taking the first few steps of my journey of the next whole chapter of my life. But unlike the last time (when I set tentative foot in hotels and thought "I guess I will just work for a while at something, until I am ready to face University again and finish my Latin degree..." and had NO idea where I was headed), this time I have a real sense of my purpose, even if I can only see a few steps ahead. I sense the heart of what I'm aiming for as I go. It is both more comforting, and more exciting, and scarier in some ways, than 10 years ago when I was mostly clueless.

The program outline looks incredible! Our second residency will be here in Victoria again in November, but the 3rd and final one, prior to our 6 month overseas field work placements, will be in Uganda!!!! We go as a group to the University of Makerere, where my friend Flora (with whom I worked at Wajee Nature Park this January) studied. So I will be back in Africa again so soon -- April 2008. Some of the 6 month projects that previous years' students have done look extraordinary, and I'm already tingling with anticipation about where mine might be and what I might do.

The faculty are amazing. They have so much depth of experience and breadth of vision. Some of the instructors have decades of military experience; others are playwrights and human rights activists; others worked in government, NGOs and the UN. They are from all over the world and have so much to share -- but every one of them reemphasizes that RRU is a place for lifelong learning, and that they come to each class to learn as much as to teach.

One of my laughs today came when we did the Myers-Briggs type indicator thing. As usual, I am an INFP (borderline I/E, so severely "N" that I can leap tall facts in a single bound of intuition, rather firmly F, and really terribly P except at work when I have to cultivate some J attributes now and then). [Later note: I am an ENFP, always have been, always will be; I used to get false Introvert readings.] For those of you who have not done this -- DO IT. There are online sites where you can test yourself. Anyway the booklet we were given on types has "Myers Briggs Type Prayers" and mine reads:

"Lord, please help me to finish everything I sta

[Later note: the prayer for an ENFP is: "God,help me to keep my mind on one th -oh look a bird! -ing at a time."]

(Let's see... I know at least 3 INTPs, so here is your prayer: "Lord, help me be less independent, but let me do it my way." And for the multiple ESTJs in my life: "God, help me try not to run everything. But if You need some help, just ask.")

I love it here. I am exactly where I need to be at this moment and I'm grateful for everything I am experiencing. And thank you for reading along so I can feel I'm sharing it with people in my life. Please do send me stories from your corners of the world so I can keep up from here on what you are doing!