initiation – Katie Kearns

My first day of glass-blowing class

a woman in a t-shirt seated at a bench pulling on a red rod of hot glass. A man in a baseball hat and Holiday World t-shirt is standing next to her. There are tools and benches in the background and two other people behind them.

Everything was loud. The flames were loud, the light was loud, the heat was loud. Strangely, with all that sensory input, there was no differentiation to give me information about changes in my environment. I couldn’t hear anything else but those jets. I couldn’t see the surface of the glass. I couldn’t feel anything but searing heat on my skin. I had to draw upon internalized imaginings of the movements I had seen Ben make. I had to “feel” my way through it.

Making meaning (Part I)

To me, meaning-making is the way we make deliberate mindful observations, recounting and interpreting stories we find significant and important. It’s the “being” part of human beings.

Back to “Normal”

I’ve been thinking about what it means to me to both move forward and return to normal in a psychologically and socially healthy way. And I’ve been thinking about how this transition relates to the work I do in helping graduate students make sense of their significant transitions during graduate school

Graduate School as a Hero’s Journey

[Image of Moana from the 2016 Disney movie, Moana] “What all myths have to deal with is transformations of consciousness. You have been thinking one way, you now have to think a different way. Consciousness is transformed either by the trials themselves or by illuminating revelations. Trials and revelations are what it’s all about.” -JosephContinue reading “Graduate School as a Hero’s Journey”