Walking as Attunement: Being With/In Nature as Currere

Abstract

Being physically and spiritually attuned to the world around us forms the loom on which we weave our curricular understandings. Here, we strive to find the extraordinary in the ordinary and make room for a poetic way of attending to the lived curriculum. More than a way of doing research, we regard this way of being as a deep and disciplined presence with/in the world we inhabit. Through our own individual practices of walking the earth, our physicality explores the relationships between flesh and stone, and rain and tears, and the immediacy of the poetic takes form. Our walking practices open up the space not only to mindfulness, but bodyfulness, where the present moment has the capacity for the infinite. This type of active contemplation invites us into an expansive place where we can consider the very nature of education and its potential to foster or impede holistic teaching, learning, living, and being. Through writing together, we lift ourselves and each other out of the metaphorical and literal containment of our current contexts and find an invitation to walk and write into wonder.

Merging Eco-Literacy, Visual Poetry, and Arts-Informed Practices: A Curriculum of Eco-Justice Education

“…Recognizing the transformative potential of this eco-artful practice, we investigate how compassion for the Earth is developed through this practice. Writing poetry over the natural dye art is important because this practice allows us to access things deeply held and difficult to express (Lyle & Snowber, 2021). The act of collecting the berries and flowers, making dye, and then creating art helps learners move from sterile cognitive processes to those deeply embodied.…”

A Walking Curriculum: From “Good Ideas for Walks” to Transformative Design for Eco-Social Change

“…Walking as a practice is, perhaps, one of the key activities required to rethink notions of professional development in a system in which there never seems to be enough time (Jardine, 2013). Walking as a way of attuning physically, emotionally, and imaginatively to the living world is, for example, the first theme noted in the literature on walking pedagogy (Beavington, 2021;Beyes & Steyaert;Donald, 2021;Lyle & Snowber;. Unlike texts, which are static and often tend to lose their novelty and educative impact over time, the living world is a virtually interminable source of learning, wonder, and knowledge.…”

Book Review: Dance, Place, and Poetics: Site-Specific Performance as a Portal to Knowing

“…Dance, Place, and Poetics: Site-specific Performance as a Portal to Knowing convenes with the growing scholarship on walking, composing and creating (Hotton, 2015;Irwin, 2006;Lasczik Cutcher, 2018;Lyle & Snowber, 2021;Snowber, 2016b;Springgay & Truman, 2018), which generates a "curriculum of nature". Of particular interest is the connection with Irwin's notion of "walking the course" (2006, p. 77), rather than rushing through it, and of "walking as attunement" (Lyle & Snowber, 2021). Walking in nature might appear to be a solitary practice, but we are never alone.…”