The other day we spoke with someone about my dream of Crystal Farm School, about how get the support to make it happen, how to gather together the visionaries who can make it real. He helped us realize that the mechanics, things like the goals and objectives and the incorporation process, may be important, but these are not the things which will draw a deep level of support or make normal, sane folks commit to the level of insane effort needed. These things are not the dream, and only the dream will attract like minded dreamers. Only a dream can compel us to exceed our capabilities and strive for and accomplish the impossible. So, in the hope of enticing other dreamers driven by the same vision, here is our dream.
If we are going achieve a growth of the human spirit to match the growth of human technology we have to develop;
• A quantum mechanics of the soul, a new way to look at, understand and develop ourselves, individually and as a species,
• A cadre of people who understand and can utilize this "mechanics" instinctively and intuitively as well as intellectually [they have to grow up in it],
• Institutions which enable the growth and nurturance of that cadre,
• A faculty of people who are willing and able to engage in the struggle to implement that quantum mechanics, create those institutions, and enable that cadre, knowing that only they can and will take it far beyond any horizon we can glimpse, even when we stand on O Sensei's shoulders.
We believe that the art form we call Aikido was given to us by Morihei Ueshieba as his vision of that quantum mechanics for the soul.
We further believe, deeply, that those of us who receive some part of this gift are obliged to take our small glimmer of his vision and develop ways to inculcate it into our society. we admire, and envy, those students of Aikido who are attempting this in ways which blend with their other life passions. The therapists, counselors, business consultants, youth workers, health care and others who carry on a dual struggle to master the elements of their professions while utilizing that profession as a means to insinuate this "soul mechanics" into ever widening segments of our species are initiating movement with far reaching consequences. Tsunamis are merely very large ripples.
Given our skills, experience, personal joy and passion in developing groups committed to working with young people, and our own selfish need for a community of like minded souls, we see our contribution to this process as developing institutions totally committed to the evolution of young people who, highly skilled in both succeeding in society as it is and utilizing a new set of skills, abilities and philosophies soundly rooted in this quantum mechanics of the soul, will move society toward what it can be.
We believe that young people want to and are capable of assuming responsible control over their own lives and futures and participating as constructive members of their community and further, that they have a passionately rooted drive to make that community a better place. It is our responsibility as "adults" to provide them with a well structured learning environment, effective learning programs and resources, a staff who are caring, competent, supportive, positive role models, and the opportunity to accept responsibility and to test their capabilities to the fullest. But most importantly, we must give them a vision of a better society and the skills and abilities to move us, as a species, further up the mountain to that vision.
We are deliberately not using terms such as "peaceful" because that all to often contains shreds of stagnation. Struggle, competition and conflict are key factors in growth. we rather see a society based on conflict resolution which is "win - win", where disagreement is seen as mutual teaching/learning, where uke and nage strive with each other, not against one another.
Crystal Farm School is our dream, our vision. In our dream of dreams, it is just the first of many such institutions. And, in a vision almost to wonderful to look at directly, Crystal Farm will be the fulcrum upon which our entire educational system, and subsequently our society, might someday turn, if ever so slightly. Not only will we graduate young people strong and capable enough to bring change where ere they go, we shall serve as the founding parents of many other such schools. Hell, we will be so powerful that public schools will want to rip off our "secrets". And we will help them. After all, the alternative school movement of the seventies did exactly that.
Someone once said, "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand on and I will move the earth". Our graduates will be the lever, Crystal Farm the place to stand.
If Aikido is serving as a place for adults to learn better ways to contribute to our society, how much more effective will it be for young people of high school age. The power of Aikido is that it enables us to grow and change through all of the human arteries of learning; intellectual, emotional, experiential, physical, metaphysical and spiritual. As we get older, many of these channels harden or atrophy from disuse. But the arteries of adolescents are clean of plaque, wide open, and at full bore, assimilating and processing anything and everything that comes near.
This is the age when they begin to perceive what is "wrong" with society and begin the vigorous search for ways to better it.
This is the age when they question everything, and are most open to exploring ways to create new answers.
This is the age when they are still great sponges for learning, beginning to gain skills and abilities in intellectual learning, but yet still most open to kinesthetic learning, learning through physical movement.
What will these kids have when they graduate from Crystal Farm?
• A solid grounding of world based liberal arts knowledge.
• The ability to approach and resolve conflict effectively and with care for the safety of all involved.
• An understanding of the cause and effect of world history.
• The ability to conceive, plan, carry out and evaluate projects, individually, and as a part of small and large groups.
• The ability to set cohesive day-to-day, long term and life goals, to self evaluate and refine those goals
• The ability to formulate and advocate powerfully for ideals, ideas, beliefs.
• The ability to bring those ideals, ideas, beliefs to a group and work constructively to develop a positive consensus decision making process.
• The skills to both lead and follow constructively.
• First dan in Aikido.
• The basic technical skills necessary to negotiate the web for research and to continue their "distance learning" as a life-long enterprise.
• The skills needed to succeed in the most demanding college environment.
• The worldly survival skills needed to thrive in today's society.
• An absolutely dy-no-mite tenkan.
We will graduate young people who are strong and compassionate, who are powerful individuals and dynamic collaborators, who have a solid intellectual grounding and a wellspring of intuition, who can succeed in today's society but have the resources [even if subconsciously] to bring about change, who have the capacity and the resources to be, to their fullest capacity.
Also, all graduates will have a degree as Homo Aikidokas, and thereafter, wear a white leotard, black bicycle shorts, a black and white check cape and have a yin-yang symbol with a flaming blue A on their chest. Of course they will usually appear as mild mannered social change agents.
All this is, of course, impossible. It can't be done. We can't begin to grasp the difficulties and problems we will face. The work necessary to create and maintain the institution which can bring this all about is virtually insurmountable. The goals, objectives, action steps, etc., already cover many closely typed pages, and are yet incomplete. It is tiring just thinking about it.
What better reason to do it! What other reason for starting right now. If we want our young people to set out to do the impossible, we must lead until they out run us.
The power of a human being lies in the X factor, the ability, and the irrational insistence on exceeding our limits, for going beyond our design capacity, for constantly surprising ourselves by accomplishing that which we know is far beyond our capability. And what we can not accomplish alone, we can as a group. All of us together are much more powerful than all of us alone.
However, successfully establishing Crystal Farm School will not be enough.
• If our students come only from the Aikido community, we will not be fully succeeding. We must draw from across society.
• If our students are only accepted and successful in the best of colleges and go on to lead successful lives, we will not be fully succeeding.
• We must enable and inspire them to carry their Aikido "off the mat"
• If we succeed in establishing only ourselves, even though the school endures for years, we will not be fully succeeding.
• We must accept the further task of serving as a ground for propagating and nurturing sister institutions.
• If we establish only a network of private schools, no matter how large or world wide, we will not be fully succeeding.
• We must infiltrate the public school system until every young person has experience in this dynamic way of approaching life.
We want to create a world we can only begin to imagine. we want to bring together a group of people too driven to realize how impossible our task is. we want to wake up every morning scared to death by how much there is to do, and go to bed every night exhilarated with what we have accomplished. we want to leave something of true beauty. we want to conceive, birth and raise Crystal Farm together. Other than that, we want a nice, easy, restful, uncomplicated life.
Welcome to our dream. Please join us.
Tom Osborn
Fran Welson
Phone: 413 532-9034 Email: info@CrystalFarmSchool.org