Penny's Notes
My Base – Language and Culture My Scrambler – Plants, Nature, Agriculture
(As described yesterday, I don’t hold a lot of interest in Agriculture, so I decided to focus on Plants and Nature.
When researching these alone, the key points of interest that continually caught my eye were the references to plants and their meanings, plants, and in particular flowers that have been used over the years, decades, centuries, and in various cultures, to send messages, tell a story, represent feelings, and journeys of discovery.
I figured there has to be something more in that. As stated, I’ve always found interest in visual patterns, mathematical patterns, patterns in general make sense to me, and provide a framework for me to synthesise my learning.
So, I thought let’s have a look at Patterns in Nature, represented through Art.
One of the results from the search that stood out was a link to ‘NaturePlay’, and a blog describing Art in Nature and how this can be found everywhere.
This appealed specifically because I had introduced the concept of Nature Play at my school when a group of students wanted to begin a digging club (miner’s club). So last year, I explored with these students what learnings could come out of this. Other than looking at different types of rock and soil and classifying these elements, it soon branched out into what could we create out of the natural resources surrounding us? This then led to cubby building and implementing other activities that promoted learning, communication, team work, problem solving, etc.
The one thing though that continued to present challenges for some of the students was this idea that if they created something from nature that they then owned their creation and no one else was allowed to touch or take the natural resources they had used and use these elsewhere.
Anyway, you may be wondering how does all this link back to my final project?
When reading through this Blog on Art in Nature, it described the idea of Ephemeral Art and how this is created using items found in nature, it has no boundaries, no mistakes, it was free flowing, allowing for ideas to change and creations to be recreated and that every piece is unique.
Art in nature, also reinforced, or allowed the development of understanding that Nature Art is temporary as it can be washed away by water, wind, rain, etc.
I thought, okay, this could help develop in my students an understanding that when creating something in nature, we need to also understand that it is not permanent, so they can’t own their sticks their rock buildings, their cubby houses. That just like when we create a sand castle, the water could come along and wash it away. When we create our cubby houses or dirt creations in the digging pit, that by the next break, something could have happened to it and changed what was originally created, whether this was a natural or manmade catalyst of change, that this was okay. Further reading into the blog, the article explored the idea that through Ephemeral Art you can see various personalities emerge by the way the elements are used. So there is the unstructured, free flowing representations and the straight ordered lines of leaves, positioning of rocks, sticks, etc.. and space for the creation of mandalas using natural materials.
So, Mandalas (wow). Time to have a look at these in more detail. So I found that Mandalas are a geometric design that hold great symbolism to Hindu and Buddhist cultures. (Great – another link back to my Base). And this link to Buddhist belief that nothing is permanent. A common theme in Nature Play. This appealed to me why? Geometric Designs provide a sense of order, organisation, form and allow for stories to be told through the representations contained within the mandala. I had read that Mandalas could be used as mental maps for their creators. A representation or guide on the path to enlightenment. So I became excited and thought, how could I represent this journey through this DIG and capture the process of learning I’ve engaged in throughout the week. So here goes.
Penny's Mandala
Centre: Dandelion – this symbolizes courage and is useful when you are feeling hesitant in life or are facing changes that require faith and courage. I thought this was appropriate given not only the current COVIC-19 situation but the courage all of us have demonstrated to be involved in this DIG, particularly at this point in time when we are about to head back to school next week.
Next layer: Spiral Fern – demonstrating the many pathways of exploration that my research took me along. The rabbit holes that I was taken down
Next layer: Venus FlyTrap – Representing the Pit of Learning we all faced not knowing which pathway to take, feeling lost, but also that for many of us, finding ourselves focusing on the product rather that the process.
Orange Marigold - The orange marigold represents timing. It can be used in meditation to enhance your sense of timing or enhance your ability to intuitively understand the correct time to take action. For each of us the timing was different, that aha moment was different.
Lotus Flower - Lotus flower represent enlightenment and growth. When the timing was right, the joy followed.
Finally, the White Lily – The white lily flower mandala symbolizes choice and brings about a deeper understanding of choices in life and helps you make the right decisions.