Muir ("Crater") Lake, 4th of July lastlight, view East toward Granite Mountain.
(VII.4.2009) Eagle Cap Wilderness . . .
On the road in the American Northwest. [click photo for next . . . ]

ON THE TWIN GUIDEPOSTS OF
LEARNING & EDUCATION

"When people are wrong, the thing that is
right is bound to be wrong to them."
F. M. Alexander

In this brief sketch or outline, I'd like to suggest that the
twin guideposts of all learning and education are Yoga
and The Alexander Technique. Why? Because Yoga forms
the life-long practice of learning to work and move and do
things without force. And the Alexander Technique (AT)
forms the complementary life-long practice of learning to
work and move and do things without unnecessary tension.
So we have movement without force, and we have movement
without unnecessary tension.

Together as one, the twin guideposts of Yoga and AT form
a kind of path, a path of awareness. What we become aware
of is, in my view, essentially waste, the waste of intelligence,
and the waste of energy when unnecessary force and tension
are used to accomplish tasks or ends, in whatever form, at
whatever level.

The twin guideposts of Yoga and AT point us clearly in the
direction of an implied constellation of ethical and aesthetic
criteria. To do things—whether writing at a table, working
at a computer keyboard, learning the steps of a complex
dance, or playing the violin—without unnecessary force
and tension is always, from the viewpoint being presented
here, good; it is also always beautiful. Children, I think,
sense this instantly, for it is essentially how the innate
intelligence of the young mind itself engages the world.
So, in a way, the twin guideposts of Yoga and AT serve to
strengthen, nurture and protect gifts which, by their very
nature, are already implicitly there, waiting as it were just
under the surface, and ready to be developed and
awakened.

VII.4.2009,
Muir (Crater) Lake,
Eagle Cap Wilderness

ON THE TWIN GUIDEPOSTS'
is a part of THE LITTLE CLAVIER
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I might just mention here, following the simple ethical principle,
First, do no harm, that I never use cars or trucks or snowmachines.
Instead, I do everything on foot, or bike or ski. I think this in a
direct way affects my work, and deeply affects how I see
the world. So all the photos above were approached
on foot—including all the 'in between spaces,' sometimes
involving journeys of weeks or months.

I would not want to work any other way.