Dr. Nefretete Rasheed

"Everyday is Graduation"
Dr. Nefretete Rasheed
Addresses Students


On Thursday, June 2, 2011, at Ananda College of Living Wisdom......

Distinguished faculty, staff, guests, and members of the class of 2011. I am honored and blessed to stand here with you as we celebrate the achievements of our students today and this extraordinary college. I know it is a special school because I did not have to say no tweeting or texting in class – not even once! And the only drama I have seen since I arrived has been on a stage! It’s really very special - and you really can’t beat the commute! A few steps between your room, the dining room and your classroom!

Seriously though, this is indeed an exceptional institution and I want you to know class of 2011 that you are the testament – the material evidence of this fact. I also want you to know how very much it means to all of us to have you as our students.

…Feeling your excitement and energy – looking into your bright happy faces – what a contrast to my angst and ambivalence when I was your age receiving my first degree from Howard University. I remember feeling more than a little disappointed because after 4 hard years of work and study, I had few additional answers to my deeper questions and I knew my search would have to continue. It was just not a concept then – that you could fuse a career with your spiritual path and ambitions - unless (heaven forbid!) you wanted go into the church.

I sat in the warm sunshine looking over the field of black and gold robes and caps and wrote a poem called Everyday is Graduation out of my frustration. I don’t remember all the lines from the poem but only a couple – I asked: ‘…Have the lessons of school given me the lessons of life? I have only this - a paper scroll to wage my battles…’ But YOU should have no such quandaries. You – are here – in this singularly wonderful place – the Ananda College of Living Wisdom. Consequently, you will be able to embrace and integrate the best of both worlds. You will be able to incorporate the deeper messages and higher teachings of how to live not only with yourselves but in the world as well. The ground you stand on will be so much firmer – the road and your very direction - so much clearer. You may choose to spend a few more years in school – or you may begin right away to work in earnest to build your lives and careers – either way you already have a ‘winning’ edge and it is a ‘holistic’ one.

Dr. Moreno the, father of psychodrama (I reference him because of strong philosophic, social, and educational parallels between him, Yogananda and Swamiji). Great minds really do seem to think alike. Moreno, once said to Freud in reference to his clients - “You analyze their dreams. I give them the courage to dream again. You analyze and tear them apart. I help them…put the parts together...” This was a radical approach – revolutionary thinking during the first half of the last century – and that revolutionary and visionary spirit is shared by Ananda College. We also negotiate that sharp edge between conservative and new educational models. This is not your grandma’s school! Ananda College is a school for the 21st century. A school for the mission and needs of young people today and for generations to come. Ananda’s role, as I see it and as Moreno articulated it in his work - is designed to counteract the technological materialism of the age. He of course, was referring to the Industrial Age but it is still if not even more so applicable to our age of technology today. (Technology and machinery should not supercede or syphon the critical resources required for the welfare and health of people. Technology was made for people. The people were not made for technology.)

Moreno was a medical doctor but he clearly understood the social validity and importance of an empowering educational model and a holistic community. I hear the philosophical echoes of Yogananda and Swamiji when Moreno says that: (1) that spontaneity and creativity are the propelling forces in human progress; (2) Love and mutual sharing are powerful indispensable working principals in group life. Therefore, it is imperative that we have faith in our fellow man’s intentions, a faith which transcends mere obedience; and (3) that a super dynamic community based on these principles can (and should) be brought to realization through new techniques. Moreno, I am certain would have loved the Ananda Community and this college.

Ananda College inspires and encourages these values. It is not a traditional institution and I hope it never becomes one - if by becoming traditional it has to diminish or de-emphasize those intrinsic spiritual elements that make it so distinct – because I believe, like Dr. Moreno, – that after you have studied history, linguistics, psychology, languages, and science – after you have learned trigonometry, physics, and histology - even after you have had your lobotomy – you still have to learn HOW to live in the world.

And I tell you class of 2011, you guys know how to live! You have been given a special gift – a unique education. You have already lived here and learned here that singular ‘Biggest Idea:’ That it is not what you take from the world - but what you give to the world - in service, in love, and in gratitude for life.

So, class of 2011, I congratulate you one and all and with reverence and joy for the journeys you are about to embark upon I wish you God’s peace, love, and endless blessings today and always.

I would like to leave you with this poem dedicated to my students and the class of 2011 – It now has a three part title:

“Everyday is Graduation – Pt II: The Mental Body (my students will recognize this reference) and Spring – Why aren’t We There Yet?”

 

Everyday is Graduation – Pt II: The Mental Body

Measure the valleys, measure the hills…

      …Now, I sit between the high grass and dimming sky
the fallen suicidal stars and consider The Mysteries
I wrestle phantoms. The same winter ghosts that pluck the blooms
& surrender us to sleep…

I want you to Think
that each day your Mind
like a giant cedar in the center of a cosmic forest
is a confluence of dying and growing thoughts
is a combustion of spring and winter

Everything is graduating

advancing like this reluctant season
rising turning returning but
open to the possibilities and the ironies of spring
understanding the seed will never see the flower

Everyday is a graduation

Thinking accounts for seasonal change
and what fruit comes to bear
from both verdant &
storm slaughtered branches

in those woods of tumbling kama kazi thoughts
we harvest again and again and again
until we cultivate the budding
graces of endurance

Everyday is a graduation

the endless music from the fountain
WILL finally reach our ears
and the attending humming birds
WILL convert that sweetness into flight…

Everyday is a graduation

Now, some folks have that petrified forest
thang going on. Where NO living thing can emerge
Still others wander in an expressionistic blur
No sharpness. No edges. No injury.

Everything is a graduation

And somehow almost surreal in clarity
That Biggest Idea emerges
Like Godzilla
Up from Tokyo Bay

Up from the night’s transcendent forms
those angels of our discernment
shift the trajectory of our desires
& inherited demands

Everyday is a graduation

as we bundle and gather history
the artillery of our thoughts
to Sleep
and Keep the dreams we must

I want you to think
because all is Mind. Mind is all.
This chrysalis will fall away and the soul
will find the art it sets out for

Everyday is a graduation

We are not unlike that mindful tree
fastened to the ground straining
upwards in our radiance with the privilege of gradu-ating
with the privilege of growing more humanely human

Every day is a graduation

So gather your brightness from
these Sierra Hills and rush the world
Gather your brightness from these
hills and Storm the world with
your gold and your light!

Your graduation is TODAY

-Nefretete Rasheed

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