Curricular Activities

Originally written Thursday, November 17, 2005

And today I woke up to a thin sprinkling of snow on the ground. I went to see Trudy to see if her place had gotten any warmer, but she wasn’t around. There seemed to be some things missing, so she might have found somewhere to move to.

Patrick came over to study. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s able to juggle his undergraduate work with his Grey Orchid studies extraordinarily well. Those kinds of time management skills are difficult to find nowadays, which is precisely why it’s been decades since I’ve had a student who could complete the curriculum and considerably longer since I’ve had a gifted one. Without the support of a whole school, no one, of course, has the schedule to take the curriculum on full-time. Nor, for that matter, do I have the schedule to teach it.

When I talk about students in that way, I am referring specifically to those of the Grey Orchid. There isn’t much money in that these days, so I earn my living and my renown via more conventional teaching in the philosophy department at the Midwestern college I am leaving conspicuously unnamed. I want to be careful not to sound as though I hold my college students in any less regard than those of the Grey Orchid, but there is a different scale of regard in effect. And since I don’t just teach but live the Grey Orchid philosophy, some of it comes through in my classes and in my day-to-day interactions. The teachings sustain me, as I sustain them. I have to. There aren’t many of us left to do it.