Study

I am a school-loving kind of gal.  I have always enjoyed what back in the day might be called “book learning” and embrace the chance to study new things.  It brings me joy to learn!  In recent years I am discovering that the desire to learn facts and phrases outside of me is quite possibly an extension of wanting to learn about myself.  How do I fit into all this knowledge abounding? 

At dictionary.com study is defined as a verb without an object in four entries.
1.  to apply oneself to the acquisition of knowledge, as by reading, investigation or practice.
2.  to apply oneself; endeavor.
3.  to think deeply, reflect, or consider.
4.  to take a course of study as at college.

There are so many wise people sharing themselves and their knowledge in person and through books.  I study with them to perhaps fill myself with tools and find the best way of living.  Study doesn’t have to involve a book.  It can be listening to someone talk.  It can be enjoying music.  Any endeavor in which we apply ourselves can be an act of study.  Cooking.  Gardening.  Writing.  Exercise.  Working.  Meditation.  Everything can teach us.  Anything can offer opportunity to think deeply, reflect, or consider.

Taking time to study is also not necessarily pleasant all the time even if purely voluntary.  Continuous time spent in the acquisition of knowledge often makes me tired.  Sometimes makes me bored.  Sometimes seems too hard.  Sometimes doesn’t make sense.  Sometimes I learn things I truly cannot understand or that my gut tells me to reject or that conflict with some information I already assume to correctly possess.  Sometimes I learn things I did not want to know.

I feel camaraderie as I study with fellow folks I know are right there with me approaching life as a kind of classroom.  We want to know more so that we can know ourselves. 

Schooling

sponge soaked in abundance, spilled
information leaping

lapping up pages scribbled by hands
holding heart queries

answers with questions never simply
accepting squeeze

intuition wrings what we don’t know
may harm or make

us lighter.  With inquiry bodies discern
true knowledge

a quest for you without smoked mirrors
instead clear sight