Description
Beginning this writing journey, I reflect upon my eight-year old self at boarding school when I played the major role in a school play, called 'The Wattle Tree'. I was the tree, standing for one and a half hours with arms outstretched, laden with boughs of wattle.
During the play 'I' experienced all seasons of life and all the nature of things around me. I swayed back and forth in the wind, speaking my feelings out aloud whilst children ran around, taunting and playing with 'me'. I learned to adapt to the external environment, drawing on my inner strength to feel elevated and connected, but also simultaneously separate and independent. I recall sometimes the sense of isolation and loneliness, as well as the relief and sense of freedom, when I was left alone from outside forces.
I loved and strongly related to my role as that tree, to the unique and powerful position I held and the influence and usefulness I provided. And now, as I begin to revisit my Spirit of Learning journey, I see that much of my own learning, since I first began to recognise my essential inner self, can be encapsulated within this early 'dramatic' experience. So once again I take up the metaphor of the tree as a means of signifying the various aspects and stages of another presentation, this time an expression flowing from the experience of many more years of learning's growth.
