Dear organlearners,
Winfried Deijman asked me in LO12105 to write down a few lines of Eugene
Marais' poem Winternag. I wrote that Marais was sensitve to the priciples
of an LO long before Peter Senge enunciated them - and moreover so in a
nonhuman LOs (termites and baboons).
The more we loose contact with nature, the more our creativity and thus
our learning may lead us into dead ends. Nature is the complex substrate
on which we have to base our own creations, whether we like it or not. We
often try to defy nature, only to learn that we should have created with
her.
But back to Eugene Marais. He has written a poem which became very real to
me the first time when I was caught in a desert rain storm, far from any
shelter. I though I have forgotten the poem, but it emerged in all its
beauty during that storm. Here is the poem, first in Afrikaans, and then
with an English translation.
DIE DANS VAN DIE REEN
Eugene Marais
Lied van die vioolspeler, Jan Konterdans,
uit die Groot Woestyn.
O die dans van ons Suster!
Eers oor die bergtop loer sy skelm,
en haar oge is skaam;
en sy lag saggies.
En van ver af wink sy met die een hand;
haar armbande blink en haar krale skitter;
saggies roep sy.
Sy vertel die winde van die dans
en sy nooi hulle uit,
want die werf is wyd en die bruilof groot.
Die grootwild jaag uit die vlakte,
hulle dam op die bulttop,
wyd rek hulle die neusgate
en hulle sluk die wind;
en hulle buk, om haar fyn spore op die sand te sien.
Die kleinvolk diep onder die grond hoor die sleep van haar voete,
en hulle kruip nader en sing saggies:
Ons Suster! Ons Suster! Jy het gekom! Jy het gekom!
En haar krale skud,
en haar koperringe blink in die wegraak van die son.
Op haar voorkop is die vuurpluim van die berggier;
sy trap af van die hoogte;
sy sprei die vaal karos met altwee arms uit;
die asem van die wind raak weg.
O, die dans van ons Suster!
Translation by Jack Cope, Uys Krige (and a little by me)
THE DANCE OF THE RAIN
Song of the fiddler, Jan Konterdans, from the Great Desert.
Oh the dance of our Sister!
First she peeps slily over the mountaintop,
and her eyes are shy;
and she laughs softly.
And from far off she beckons with one hand;
her armbands flash and her beads glitter;
softly she calls.
She tells the winds of the dance,
and she invites them,
for the clearing is wide and the wedding will be great.
The big antelope race up from the plains,
they bunch on the hilltop,
straining wide their nostrils
and they swallow the wind;
and they bend to see her faint footmarks in the sand.
The little people deep under the ground hear her feet rustle
and they creep nearer and sing softly:
Our Sister! Our Sister! You have come! You have come!
And her beads shake
and her copper anklets glint in the sloping of the sun.
On her forehead is the fire-plume of the mountain eagle;
she steps down from the heights;
she spreads out the grey kaross with both her arms;
the breath of the wind is lost.
Oh, the dance of our Sister!
The Khoi word 'kaross' refers to a blanket made of animal skin.
The Khoi word Kalahari is often used to refer to the Great
Desert. The Kalahari covers an area abou the size of Texas.
I hope you will enjoy this poem. It is for me one of the most
poetic descriptions of an emergence. I have often written about
emergent learning - this is how we should experience emergent
learning.
Best wishes
-- -
At de Lange
Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education
University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa
email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
--"Mnr AM de Lange" <AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>