Scandinavian boxes, day 2

We finished our two day Scandinavian box making class and tomorrow I begin my 5 day long box making class at Marc Adams School for 18 students. Today we nearly completed our boxes, and I was very pleased to see my student's creativity and success. There is a saying that a teacher's work is finished when his students surpass him. It will be a continuing challenge to stay ahead of the pack, as you can see in the photos above and below.
I'll show my demo box from the Scandinavian Box class tomorrow along with photos from Day One of my Decorative Wooden Boxes Class.

Many of my readers are no doubt familiar with the writings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi whose book "Flow" describes the contemplative state of mind often achieved through craftsmanship. While in Indiana, I have been witness to flow of another kind. You don't have to be in Indy to see it, but while I am so close to the home of the Indy 500, I can't help but find the highways to be informative, illustrating matters of human consciousness.

Each morning and afternoon I drive Interstate 65 from the motel to Marc Adams School, and then home again after a day of class. There is a dramatic contrast between the two. Yesterday, driving, I was reminded of films from the Serengeti, herds of wildebeest, and antelope streaming like rivers though African grasslands, cars and huge trucks moving in wild and mindless scynchrony, as hunted prey. In class, in contrast, students work with intellectual intensity, entering a state of timelessness and control. And so, I wonder, which is the truth of our humanity? Are we one or the other, or is one the ideal that we might seek and that we might uphold as the future for our relationship to our planet?

Tomorrow I may choose a road less traveled that can be driven with more contemplative and peaceful intent. As a good friend of mine used to say, "before going with the flow, look to see where the flow is going."