making it...

Today, we had another meeting of our Carl Jung study group, and some of what Jung wrestled with is very little different from what early educators attempted to understand as well. For instance, Otto Salomon explored the relationship between left and right as a means to better understand how we might more effectively teach kids. He thought it would be useful for children to be in balance, left and right, and therefore better centered within their own bodies. In the Theory of Educational Sloyd, Salomon published a chart showing the typical bodily distortion resulting from handedness, and while he acknowledged the impossibility of overcoming society's support of right over left, or of the body's own inherited inclinations, he advocated gymnastics as a means to bring balance to both mind and body. He noted,

"It is important that both sides of the body be harmoniously developed."

To that end, Salomon suggested,

"Sloyd may be regarded as a system of applied gymnastics, but only in this meaning, that the gymnastics shall be applied so far as is compatible with the maintenance of the proper educational character of this subject."

Early educators believed that the mind and body were in fact a single form, and that to neglect the education of the body would be to neglect the mind as well. Jung, in his integration of conscious mind with the unconscious, used his own creativity in physical form to do so. Have you ever while being engaged in woodworking noted its gymnastic qualities? I have.

Today I have been working on photos for an article for American Woodworker, describing how to make a dedicated finger-joint router table. Despite some challenges in getting just the right shots, from just the right angles, with just the right focus you can see that I've made progress and will be able to do my first test joints tomorrow. This, too is an expression of mind and body.

Make, fix and create...