Chief Eagle walks into a 4th Grade classroom holding a staff (saga). On this staff are bird feathers, a horse tail, a buffalo skin, butterflies, and a tree. At the bottom of the staff he places a large stone.
He points to the different items on the staff and asks the students:
Does the eagle have a spirit? Yes, respond the students.
Does the buffalo have a spirit? Yes Does the horse have a spirit? Yes
Does the butterfly have a spirit? Yes Does the stone have a spirit? Yes
Do you have a spirit? Yes
He then asks:
Out of all these spirits which one is the oldest?
After a short deliberation, students agree that the rock is the oldest. Chief Eagle responds:
Yes! The rock has weathered many seasons and storms for thousands of years and has more experience. Rocks are our grandmas and grandpas and they have some beautiful teachings.
Chief Eagle asks the students to observe the rock for what it might be teaching us. The students respond with these teachings:
How to sit still. How to not move. How to be silent.
Chief Eagle agrees, telling students their answers are very important and we’ll get back to them later.
Chief Eagle asks:
We are born with four important medicines. What are they?
Students deliberate and come up with brain, body, heart, and spirit.
Chief Eagle is pleased with their answer and asks which of the four is most important. The students respond that spirit is most important. Chief Eagle then asks students to join him on a challenging journey.
We are now going to shut down our brains and emotions and sit perfectly still like the grandfather rock. We will not move our eyes, head, body, or fingers. We can only breathe and blink. This will last for one whole minute or 60 seconds. Our goal is to give all our attention to the spirit, by turning off our brain, emotions, and body. During this 60 seconds, I want you to turn off all your thinking channels. When a thought enters your mind, turn it off, don’t let it continue. Don’t let your mind wander and do as it pleases. Stop thinking about yourself, math, a horse, a dog, a rock, or the weather. Do not think of anything. You will soon find out you can control your brain and turn it completely off. This is important because your brain can become overloaded with thinking and can cause you anxiety, confusion, and frustration. Hold your hand up if this is true for you sometimes. Also during this minute, we will shut down all our heartfelt feelings. This is also important because sometimes we can be overwhelmed by sadness, by the boring channel, the mad and angry channel, the scary fearful channel, or the all alone – no one cares channel. Your feelings may suffer from the hurt channel or the bully channel. This is important because some of us get stuck and don’t know how to let these feeling channels go. Sometimes we feel this pain and suffering for long periods of time. These feelings do not need to control us. We can stop these feelings for one minute.
Next…..
How many of you stayed up late last night and have the tired channel going on today?
How many of you have the hungry channel going on? How many of you skinned your knee or elbow, bumped your head, have a cold or stomach ache, or are recovering from an operation?
Don’t give any attention to any of these things for one minute. Sit perfectly still…don’t move…don’t cough…don’t itch. Only breathe and blink. Also for those of you who are told you have “ants in your pants” and you continue to move, let’s prove to ourselves we have complete control of our bodies for one minute! Now is the time! For only one minute do not let the body, mind, or heart interfere in any way with you. Don’t let them be leaders during this minute. Shut them down and only sit in spirit. I believe you are ready to experience this challenge. Are you? BIG YES! Okay! We are ready to sit with our grandpa rock for one minute. Focus on the rock with your eyes and don’t move your eyes from this rock. Go!
After the minute journey is complete, Chief Eagle asks the students who had difficulty turning off the brain and heart channels. Who was successful at keeping them off? Who had a hard time staying still? Chief Eagle responds by telling students this experience will take practice and that he practices every day!
Next, Chief Eagle asks students how they feel right now. Student responses include:
- Calm
- Peaceful
- Not worried
- Good, clear, refreshed
Chief Eagle asks students to raise their hands if they had any of these feelings.
Next….
You can go to this special place whenever you want to…..especially when you are in deep sadness, danger, confusion, or pain. By practicing every day your spirit will become a strong leader and you will recognize all the spirits around you. You will begin to let go of all your own prejudices. You will see and treat all people and nature as spirits. It doesn’t matter what color skin they have, what religion they belong to, what mistakes they’ve made, or whether they are rich or poor. You will treat them as spirits because of your practice as a strong spirit.
And….
The more you practice giving your spirit full attention, your spirit will provide the necessary leadership and guidance the body, mind, and heart need to live a healthy, happy, stress free life.
Your body, mind, and spirit will not be divided and doing as they please. You will not be vulnerable to outside, temporary, negative “fixes”…..especially alcohol and drugs. Your mind, body, heart and spirit medicines can be united to offer you clarity, deep awareness, insight, respect, love, and kindness. Your growing spirit will remove unnecessary pain, suffering, and confusion.
Let’s practice this one minute a day until Friday when we will sit with the grandfather rock in the middle of the gym for the all school assembly where we will model and teach the audience this skill. Our mission will be to invite others to experience this teaching minute so that they, too, will be exposed to this practice and outcomes.
WOPILA. THANK YOU CHILDREN FOR TEACHING US TODAY. YOU GIVE US THE HOPE WE NEED FOR THE CHALLENGES WE FACE IN OUR FUTURE.
Grandpa Rock
XXX