There is no such thing as a student, and there is no such thing as a teacher. Those are only roles we play, depending on how our attention is directed.

I had the experience today of having some wisdom dropped at my feet. It came in the form of an unexpected phone call. It came to me as an interruption, because it served my friend, somehow, to bestow it.

And this is a very wise friend. I am often grateful for the things I'm able to learn from him. Sometimes I learn from what he tells me; more often I learn from what he shows me. But thinking about this experience today, I noticed that it was not helpful to me to be "given" wisdom in this way, and that it didn't honor who I am, or my process.

The lack of attention toward where my attention was at the moment really got my attention, so to speak, and I began to think about why it is that sometimes those little bits of wisdom seem so unhelpful, and at other times they are just delicious.

What I'm seeing is that I am playing the role of student when the spark of curiosity is lit in me, when I'm filled with interest, even hunger for understanding. It's then that I'm most able to learn.

When, then, am I playing the role of teacher? That's harder. I think I will choose to play the role of teacher only after I'm in a state of connection with someone whose curiosity is infectious, and I'm sensing, in the moment, that they're inviting me to help them discover something.

I wonder if more attention to this can shed some light on how it is that school fails to serve so many of our kids?

I received a message, very clearly, over the course of a few weeks, saying "You are a very powerful person." Over and over, people I'd meet would say to me, "You are powerful." So it wasn't just in my mind that I got the message, but from people around me. "You are so powerful."

Shortly after that, another message came, and this one was less clear. The message was that it's this very power, undirected, that results in the health problems I face. I knew that I would need to learn something about my power and how use it, in order to heal fully, and have the kind of life I envisioned for myself. I figured I'd continue the work I was doing, meditate more, read some books, train in martial arts, and those things would be the road for finding out whatever it was I needed to know.

But instead, those things are just fun stuff around the edges. It turns out that what I needed was to jump down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, off the edge of infinity. And here's what I found when I got there.

I found my attention. I held it in my hand, saw it, felt its power. I moved it around, I threw it at things... and I mean all of this literally. These are not metaphors--at least not in the usual sense. I would count this among the things that are unseen and unexplained, so in that sense, metaphor, yes. But I really did hold it. I really did feel its power. And that power--I don't know what to compare it to. There's simply nothing.

Now I am a warrior. I have seen the power of my attention, and I've also seen, since that discovery, all kinds of people and things that would diffuse it or disrupt it. I'll not let it happen. This conviction is even stronger than my protective instincts about my children. I *will not* let my attention be hi-jacked, diluted, or stolen. I have pure, clear knowledge that this is the most precious thing I've ever had my hands on, and I'm not going to let it get away.

Shit.

I just filled my gas tank with a biofuel blend. And I was thinking about how there are serious problems with corn as a fuel. And I told myself, "yeah, but it's clearly better than oil and blood, which is what the other 90% of the fuel is made of."

Oh my god.

No wonder antidepressants are so popular.

I've been pretty convinced that switching to ethanol, running cars on corn, is a bad idea. It has looked like a big corporate monoculture nightmare. But I just found some hope. I just discovered David Blume, whose work on biofuels comes from a permaculture perspective.

Alcoholcanbeagas.com offers answers to my objections. If this guy is right...

* There is enough land to feed us and grow fuel-plants.
* Cars can be fueled on a small scale, without supporting giant oil companies.
* Growing our own fuel can help heal the earth.

Given the massive potential for polyculture yields, monoculture-study dismissals of ethanol production seem silly when viewed from economic, energetic, or ecological perspectives.

Wow. What if it's true? :)