La Resolana I

The Warm Multicentric Sun of La Resolana

I remember: I was sitting in the sun in Tiburon, California, a graduate student, excited that I was able to meet in the afternoon with the guest lecturer who spoke to our group earlier in the morning. As he began his presentation, I felt a pulse go through me. It was like a wave of recognition because I heard what he was saying and recognized the kind of talking he was doing. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that made his talking familiar, but for some reason, it was as familiar to me as the sounds I heard growing up surrounding me before and after school when people talked or told stories while we went about doing various activities. These sounds were different than the sounds of talking and stories I heard in school or college, so I was startled to hear them coming through in the academic setting of our colloquium group earlier in the day…

Asian Maestro by Jose Cedillos

As I sat on the patio listening, I wrote notes of what he was saying as he responded to questions I had. While listening, I felt again that swirling of sound around me. Some things around me appeared to fade away. I couldn’t see the nearby tables on the patio. The people sitting at the tables grew indistinct. I looked directly at the speaker, sitting with his back to the covered walkway, facing me across the table. I couldn’t make out details of his face hanging in the air in front of me. I saw only the outline of head and shoulders that looked like a paper doll cut-out-space lined from a white piece of paper pasted in front of a wide black band – that used to be the walkway – extending on either side of the cutout. The outlines of things got sharper, brighter. Other things appeared to reflect the sharp pieces of brightness shattering forms of things everywhere I was looking and noticing as sounds of saying kept swirling around and seemed to go through and over and under and in-between where I was seeing until what I was hearing and seeing was bouncing off each other in quick turn-taking, showing up as seamless ribbons of rhythm patterns. I tried to blink away the wavy rhythms but they connected, expanding and banding through space between in and out. I felt myself outside myself physically inside some kind of illuminated place.

I left Tiburon for home in a different state than when I arrived. After all, I went to Tiburon to begin looking for a way to talk about my experience as an individual with multiple cultural frames of reference and to design curriculum based in that experience. But this was different. This was not an experience in which to continue by rote, academic instruction. I felt I had entered into a different space, like crossing over a threshold and it’s an experience I never experienced before. Things like this continue to happen since entering. The flashes lasted for months as if imprinted on my eyes. When the flashes softened into a kind of backdrop, things, seemed clearer, sharper, jumping out into the foreground or fading into the background and /or moving back and forth. During this period, whenever I tried reading the written words in a book, they seemed to squiggle on the white brightness on the page, as if they were moving in a swimming pool of light. I tried to talk about these experiences as they were occurring, but I couldn’t say what I was seeing because I did not know how to talk about them except to say that it was like the impression you get when a camera flash bulb goes off in your eyes, and the afterimage remains a long, long time.

Black Magic Woman by Jose Cedillos

The end of the early beginnings of the journey

When I was around five or six years old in Germany,

my mother would take a rest on the couch and I picked out her white hairs. She showed me how to put my index finger in the “hizeda”–in the ashtray–where my father’s Camel cigarette ashes where and rub the ash on my finger to take the “slippery oil” away to pull out the hairs without my fingers slipping.

She felt around on top of her head for the white hair. I reach down into her long, black hair like a horses tail, find white hairs, and pull them out. While doing this, I asked for a story. “Which one?” she always asked. “The Cave Story, my favorite!” I’d say. I always asked for my favorite story….

‘We were in the cave nine days,
I already roll my mother up in a blanket – she not quite dead yet. She was hit in forehead, on side, big hole. Later on, I left her under a tree, we had to run, cannot carry her. After war I go back in jeep with GI potato canister for her bones.

I find tree, easy to recanize which ones her bones because hole in forehead and she only have two her own teeth left on top in front on each side, motioning to her eye teeth or canines. The rest all gold before but somebody take away. After war, people no have anything they take what they can to survive. I put her bones in canister, take them to the family’s cave.

I oldest one at home, eleven keeds. I middle one, seventeen years old. I take care of my younger brothers and sisters. At night I use bamboo poles, carry two buckets, I run get water, bring back. I run through shooting, bullets go through my legs. See, that’s how I get scars around my knees, and my side.

When bombs go off; I happy – blow up potatoes. I run go get food, bring back. My brothers and sisters so hungry. Everybody hungry. My hand shot up, hanging down like this: (and gestures where her right thumb and forefinger, half a hand used to be hanging down). I no feel – that time – we so scared – have no time pay tention to hurt.

Later, she used that hand as a beauty lesson: After war there were many hurt people, American doctors no have time, cut off quick. They say cut off to here (touching her right elbow). One hakujin (white) doctor like my face, he take time. He take time only take off hanging down part, only take “hambun te” (half hand). It’su important you take care you looks.’

“Then what happened?” I’d say, feeling successful pulling out white hairs. They were easy to see in all that shinny blackness. “Then on the ninth day, the noise came closer and closer, and one Japanese soldier came inside. He said “Americans are coming, we must suicide before they get us”.

We think Americans very bad. The Japanese soldier had a hand grenade. We lay down, make circle, he sits in middle. I hold one brother one sister hand, close eyes. I hear the grenade go off, open eye. First I think I’m dead now, then I hold head up, see my body. I think I am worse than dead because I thought I have only half body but it’s the soldiers trunk on top me.

What happen is grenade have a pin, he pull pin but his body bend over grenade, and he only one blow up. I thought I lost legs but his body on top me blow out his legs. The noise from grenade brought American soldiers. They come inside. They point many things, many weapons at us. Guns, machine guns, bayonets, even they take pictures.

We scared, very scared. We don’t know what to do. We never see hakujin before. They point us with bayonets and point us to put hand up, go outside. We go outside. We never see Americans before. They stand all around us, point at us with weapons, camera, they take picture. We thought they kill us because Japanese soldiers say they kill us.

They hand me canteen, they show me: drink. I tell my brothers and sisters, ‘This must be poison. If something happu to me, don’t drink. The mizu -the water- tastu good, clean. I no have misu like this long time. I wait for poison, nothing happu, I no die.

I give to my brothers and sisters, they thirsty. They happy to drink. Then soldier give me something very dark, very brown, they show me: eat. I say to brothers and sisters, ‘This must be the poison, if something happen to me, you no eat.’ I teach them how be strong. I put in mouth, I eat, tastu very sweet, very sticky sweet. Nothing happen, I give to keeds.”

When I grew older, I decided I didn’t want to hear these stories any more because I thought they really were all just endless made in Japan fairy tales for endless made in Japan children. I wanted to play farther away from my brothers and sisters. But one day, “Uncle Wally” (Walter Cronkite) told the same story.

In 1964 when we returned from Japan, and stayed for two weeks in Menlo Park California, we were outside playing a game of seven-up, bouncing a ball against the house when we heard our mother scream. We ran inside. She was watching Walter Cronkite’s 2Oth Century, a Sunday TV program.

She had watched herself come out of the cave…drink the water … eat the dark sticky sweet stuff… Turning to my mother, I asked, “Gee Ma, did they really make Hershey bars back then?”

Sunday, April 3,1999: At 6:30 am, I started watching the History Channel and an announcement was made that the upcoming program was about WWII, Japan. Five minutes into the episode, I decided to record, and toward the end of the film, was a description of the war on Okinawa.

I saw a woman tell a story that reminded me of my favorite story (The Cave Story) my mother told me as a child in Germany. In between the woman’s story, was a film of people coming out of a shelter. One figure coming from the left foreground moving to the right, was clearly a focus of the camera.

That one person looked like my mother, had several children with her, and had an injured right hand. I showed the tape to Lee, my husband. He played it in slow motion, then in pause mode so we could get a good look at the hand because in regular motion, the hand spun around like a pinwheel in a blur.

I considered calling my mother who is visiting my sister Linda in Finley, Ohio but I didn’t want to risk upsetting her.

This story reminds me that we all come from different experiences with different stories and centers of reference. On the Multicentric Journey, we’re going to move to a sensory based model of identity for processing perceptual layers, social context and the changing human identities of today. You will encounter reality from a new perspective. You will receive perceptual exercises by going through the layers and building a human database of information. This perceptual practice becomes a steady state for going into a realm where you’re not overlooking any information and you see the interdependence that was hidden, because you are seeing ecologically. These stories are to take you, us, everyone out of the box, to where we see ecologically/interdependently.

Early Beginnings on the Journey

My father always called himself “colored” or “negro”.

My mother’s ancestry is Japanese from Okinawa. I was their first child, born in 1948, then came my sister Chiaki in 1949, next my brother Walter Daniel Shannon Jr., in 1951. We were born in Naha, Okinawa. My father returned from the United States, married my mother, adopted us, and brought us all to the United States near the end of 1951.

We lived in Fort Ord, California, then moved to Hanau, Germany. While waiting for army quarters, we lived in the town of Hanau. During this time, I started school and I remember my first day of school: I was excited to be going to school. My mother prepared me very well – she taught me the ABC’s, she taught me how to count, she showed me how to read from left to right.

Multicultural, relationships, ethnicity

She dressed me up in a pink dress starched with ruffles, put Dixie Peach hair pomade and water on my wavy black hair, braided it into two mitsami (braids), and curled my bangs, using her finger as a roller. She handed me my lunch, put a white handkerchief in her hand that had three fingers left over from the war, and we walked through the hall in the big, eighteen-room house with the upstairs closed off that Giesla, a neighbor said the Nazi occupied during the war – and out the front door.

We walked through the front garden, opened the gate and stood outside the tall black wrought iron fence. I stood next to my mother, on her right side, in front of the hand holding the handkerchief. We waited for the Army bus to come take me to the American army school for American army dependent children.

The dark green army bus rolled up the cobble stone street from the left and stopped in front of me, I got on the bus, my mother handed me my lunch, telling me to sit next to sensei (teacher), “Everything be dijobu, everything be OK.” At school, I still don’t understand what the other children are saying, but that’s OK, they didn’t understand me either, and we all wore circles with names on them. Happy sounds all around.

Lunch time comes and I do what my mother says, I sit next to sensei, who sat at the head/end of the long cafeteria table on my right. I take out my lunch from the shoebox turned obento turned lunchbox: I take out my lunch, my omosobi / my rice ball. I take out my mayonnaise jar of ocha / tea, and start to eat my lunch. All of a sudden, it gets quiet in the room. I look around for the source of the disturbance and noticed that everyone had a square thing to eat – and I had a round one. After that, everything looked dark, and I don’t remember the rest of the school day.

When I got home, I was upset and told my mother what happened. When my father came home, he found us both upset, and my mother told him something about everybody had square things, but Chiyuki had a round one. My father listened, then he laughed, then he went to the commissary and bought a loaf of bread. After that, I took square things to school, just like everybody else. They tasted good too. But sometimes I wanted to take round things. I knew I couldn’t eat my round foods comfortably at school and I wondered why couldn’t I mix round things and square things at school…

Understanding that the world just wasn’t skin colors.

It was strange to think that I had brought a different reality to the classroom. I had introduced a “Round” food a distinct difference from the Square shaped foods that my classmates had always experienced.
From this experience, though I couldn’t yet name it, the idea of “Multicentriçism” began to sprout into my mind and spirit. I translated my experience into stories that drew the attention of my cohorts. I felt and feel a need to be able to share Multicentriçism in ways other than race, ethnicity, culture, or philosophy, which means I need to learn to articulate the meaning of a practical Multicentriçism from its application and to develop a multicentric curriculum as steps to its practice in our world.

A new reality.

I know that Multicentriçism expressed the reality of all people everywhere and it would be helpful in the work of social understanding because it is another way of perceiving reality in a world of diverse people who are interacting and becoming newly conscious of their interconnectedness.

This takes us away from the concept of “multicultural” which in the end becomes a term of divisiveness. If you’re not “multiculturally oriented” then you are not respecting of another’s ethnicity. This concept in our everyday world is becoming extinct as the dinosaur. Why, you ask? Because we have become humans combined will all types of backgrounds and the backgrounds exhibit more than just skin color.

The trouble with a multicultural perspective is it presents a static view of culture and the human experience of being part of many cultures, diverse backgrounds and combination of ethnicity. These relationships can’t be understood from a static view without losing the ability to communicate and live effectively and wholly with one another.

Next Week: More stories on the path…

Welcome to the Journey at the Multicentric Institute

Multicentriçism describes the worldview of individuals who come from split genetic, philosophical, and cultural frames of reference who think, communicate, and access information from more than one frame, at the same time, without confusion, utilizing multiple levels of sensitivity transmission.

If you think, oh, another blog. Think again.

If you think, oh another place promoting a set of ideas, etc… Sure, that’s what blogs do. Here though is someplace where you can take your questions, your insecurities in living and being in today’s world where we are no longer isolated by geography. We are connected not only through technology, we have the ability to travel in person almost anywhere.  We meet people, we fall in friendship or love or find ourselves in professional relationships or in school with people we never imagined being with.  So what are we doing in this new world?  Take a moment, read and if you like, click on the About tab, read about us and send us a question. We’d be happy to answer you, yes for free.

Moving from Multicultural to Multicentriçism

We are …

Beginning to move away from an economic model of multicultural diversity that actively restricts individual creativity and productivity.

Becoming aware that multicultural concepts such as race are out-moded and are socially divisive and scientifically wrong.

Needing to communicate effectively in workplace environments with increasing numbers of people who self-identify with individual diversity, mixed ancestry.

Realizing that switching from information in one cultural frame of reference in multiculturalism to others and going back and forth is fragmenting and frustrating.

Searching for ways to stop operating in the framework of multiculturalism, which causes consciously applying psychological stresses to one’s own neurological system.

What are we going to do in this new world? We’re …

going to …

Begin moving to a different model that changes the politics of identity from a scarcity model to an abundance model of productivity.

Look at a room full of people from different backgrounds, and select information through an inclusive process.

Move to a sensory-based model of identity for processing perceptual layers, social contexts, and changing identities in the workplace environment.

Get perceptual exercises by going through the layers and building a database of information. This perceptual field becomes a steady state.

Go into a realm where you’re not overlooking any information, and you see the interdependence that was hidden because you are seeing ecologically.

But how are we going to get there…?

get there using …

Multicentric Training for relating to diversity within environmental situations for the planning and implementation of a productive workplace.

Demonstration to see how diversity arises from an ecologically perceived , connected environment.

Learning methods for doing perceptual exercises and getting practice seeing layered visual ecologies for generating workplace creativity and productivity.

Recognition that although they may not have the terms, people respond in sustaining ways to lay the groundwork for a shift in perspective.

Practice using new tools and skills for effective communication, creativity and productivity required for today’s successful workplace community.

So…

If you’re interested in the journey, and you know it’s time, make a comment, ask a question, we’ll be happy to be your guide.