Henry's Year

My heavy lifting

as Fall moves into Winter,
and as Winter holds us inside more and more,
I find it time to do my heavy lifting at school,

in November, we celebrate lives with the Day of the Dead,
reach out to the world with a hunger exercise for our middle schoolers,







and work to touch each part of the world with our imagination,












then with an International Potluck to celebrate the world and or connections
with an exuberance of food,
and then fundraising for Oxfam to help them
help empower people after people around the world,








in heavy Winter it’s time for the school play
with up to a third of the middle school
creating a dramatic whole that fully engages creators and audience,
a community is born and lives again
whenever any of us work to recreate such a wholeness,








and, just before Spring, it’s time for Science Day,








a time for the scientist in every middle schooler
to feel a call to come out and reveal itself,
in experiment, in workshop,
in the taking of risk and the joy of discovery,
and, just after, I retreat to my mountains
where I am not initiator,
rather I am apprentice
to what can be without any of my help.

by Henry Walker
March 5, ’11