Morning Dew

When we learn to appreciate even the little things, we’ll begin to see the multitudes of connections in our lives. Semiotics is an extremely complex topic (especially when you get into the research about multidimensional semiotics), but in its simple form and for everyday living, it means to become aware of the signs and symbols all around you. Appreciate them, assign meanings to them, interpret them (including doing Joe’s recommended diametrical oppositional interpretations) and understand how they influence you. It is a part of bricolage, and interacting with multidimensional signs sets emergence in action. If you can do this in your daily life, you will then naturally apply it to research. In this way, you will see more connections and interrelationships, and you will have more layers of understanding that can contribute to creative knowledge production and to finding solutions for social justice issues. That’s really all I have to say about the special gifts that come my way. Those who experience reality beyond their FIDURODian-assigned reality will understand and appreciate the discourse about signs and symbols, such as yesterday’s blog about music and other discourses I’ve written, such as in my dissertation. If semiotics is a new process for you, here’s a great resource: Semiotics for Beginners.

Teachers, and parents as well, can teach these concepts to even the youngest children and they will “get it” and they will love this form of learning. In fact, Joe’s ideas of Treasure Hunts and Epistemological Road Trips embrace the actions of looking for signs (e.g., given clues) and interpreting them in a multitude of ways. Field trips, walks, scavenger hunts, Internet epistemological road trips, even worksheets, and the like can be expanded upon, be made more interesting, and will appeal to individual interests by engaging in the use of signs and hermeneutical interpretations. Learning can be greatly extended by encouraging diversity of ideas, interests, and interpretations and sharing them in a classroom discussion, thus giving children the opportunity to engage in discourse in which they can share their differences in a friendly, non-confrontational manner.

The Keys to Dangerous Knowledge

Joe speaks often of ‘keys’ in his work. There are keys to knowledge. Many traditions also speak of keys to knowledge. What are these keys? The morning of July 29, 2013, it was communicated to me that I now have all of the keys to knowledge (a knowledge, which, like everything, including the entire cosmos, is evolving, of course). But I was told that the keys open doors to those “dangerous memories” and the “dangerous knowledge” which Joe mentions so often in his work. I don’t know what he’s referring to because I haven’t put it all together. But he mentions “dangerous knowledge” so often in his work that I know it has to be something very important with multiple interpretations possible yet also, somehow,  something specific and grand. Of course, his multidimensional critical complex bricolage is the process we must use to put it all together. It will require all of the dimensions he has specified, and perhaps more, to find enough keys and put them together. I will be guided.

As it stands, absolutely no one on this earth knows what that knowledge is. I was only provided that the powers-that-be know that it is so powerful that should it be released or otherwise come to be understood, their days of power and control are over. This knowledge is spread all over the earth and every culture only has small parts of it, and in particular, indigenous peoples have faithfully safeguarded the knowledges. We can only move forward once it’s put together. It’s not as simple as assembling a puzzle. If you have studied Joe’s bricolage process, you will understand much more is involved. Once it’s brought together so that a bigger picture is formed – which will emerge from the action of the bricolage -- then from that vantage point we must move on, because just as Joe’s unifying philosophy contends, everything is evolving; nothing is 100% certain; there is not a ‘one true’ reality; and we must use this “dangerous knowledge” to produce new knowledge in order to keep pace and live like evolved/evolving human beings we were meant to be. It was provided that earthlings tend to think they are so special and they forget that they are merely like a grain of sand in a complex, powerful cosmos. Does the cosmos need earthlings? Does the cosmos even need earth? It’s something to think seriously about. As individuals, and collectively, we do have power to contribute to the greater Cosmic good. Do we really have power to take control of outer space, the stated goal of the Neo-Conservatives? Do we think our acts of excessive material consumption and destruction can continue indefinitely? I am, of course, speaking from my own personal "western" perspective, acknowledging that I'm a part of this complex state of "the way things are." Not all societies nor does everyone buy into this competitive and consumptive nature and more people every day are seeing the folly of this mindset.

All of this may seem weird to some of you reading this, especially if you have bought into FIDURODian sciences and worldview. That’s ok. I’m just very happy that, in spite of the devious actions that continue to be taken against me by those who think they have power to destroy my life and pursuit of happiness continue to be thwarted and that I continue to be well-connected to the higher good. 

From this point on, with guidance, I will be using the keys to open those doors to understanding Joe’s “dangerous knowledge” one-by-one. I am just going with the flow. It will take many people to gain a great understanding of Joe’s “dangerous knowledge” and how it can be used to move humanity forward.

This all reminds me of a special quote from Joe’s red book, Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy: An Introduction:

FIDUROD and the traditional Western epistemology have often operated to enhance dominant power blocs by treating specific, contextualized knowledges as if they were generalizable and universal—a key point in understanding how power and dominant epistemology operate. Thus, in education FIDUROD develops universal teaching methods. In business management (Whitley, 1995) we witness the same phenomenon, as managerial techniques are proclaimed universally valid no matter what the cultural or even economic structures may be. Those with the clout to decree what is universally valid find their power dramatically enhanced, as they are able to set up the “rules of the game” to reflect their own situations and requirements. Such a capacity is central to the purposes of this book. If I can make the universal rules as to what constitutes intelligence, I can name my cognitive predispositions as the markers of a great mind; I can use the characteristics of my culture as the criteria for what constitutes a civilized culture. Can you feel the power? [page 97]. You can read the entire page here.

I had completed an extensive analysis of this entire page back in my earlier blogs on this site, which I won’t repeat here. But it’s easy to see that Joe was on a great mission here. We are changing all of the rules now. What’s great about this is that it really works! That is, in my little corner of the world, I am finding that I do have power to change the way things are done. I can override the “status quo” and at the same time my doing so can impact changes on the ways things are done in the future. At the very least, it really makes people rethink how they are “just doing their jobs” which is the first step toward change. As stated previously, I’ll provide more detailed concrete examples soon because I believe if more of us can take back our power in these ways it will ultimately have a great effect on the changes toward social justice we are seeking.

As far as keys, from the above quotation, it appears that one of the keys is having a deep understanding of the current “rules of the game.” Many people have a disdain for focusing on the negative that this has us doing, but what they fail to understand is the importance – the key—this focus has for our ability to discern where we can make the changes needed. More importantly, a deep analysis as called for with Joe’s form of bricolage is the very action that allows us to find the weak links and while they may seem to be small, they often hold the key to accessing a process for the change we’re seeking, even resulting in the emergence of a series of events that lead to change. And we can change the rules. The power of Joe’s bricolage is that actively exploring these vulnerabilities can oftentimes create perpetual actions due to the complexity by which they’ve been created and the multitudes of relationships they’re composed of. One thing leads to another. Is this an aspect of his perpetual revolution? As he explains, “falling outside the power bloc does not mean that such a person possesses no power. The power such outsiders have is a weaker power—Fiske calls it a ‘localizing power’—than that of the power bloc. Such a localizing power can be cultivated, fortified, and often deployed successfully” (p. 98).

Thus, I have already been guided to two of the important keys…the journey continues.

Oh, wait. I have not specified exactly what Key #2 is, have I? If you don’t “get it” from reading the links on semiotics, it’s easy and it’s not religion; Joe and I both are staunch anti-fundamentalists (As he has stated, “I quickly knew that I didn’t want to be a fundamentalist Protestant,” p. 16). But still, you can find key #2 in the very first verse of the Bible. Combine it with John 1:1 and you have a powerful argument for the importance of literacy skills and the ability to create with “the word.” We can call Key #2 “The word.” Also, please note that, just like everything with Joe’s form of bricolage, there is no set order for the keys. They are all equally valuable and I’m just assigning them numbers in the order I find them. I could also begin at the beginning of his book and work through sequentially, but instead, I’m allowing this to emerge as it will, synchronistically and improvisationally.

Can I verify that “the word” is a key in Joe’s work? Would he agree with this? It’s hard to find stuff in his books. Can I just open his book to the right page (this happens for me constantly!) So, I will try it right now.

What I have opened up to (pages 140-141) is a discussion of the importance of describing (in words) our experiences. He states:

In many ways such an epistemological reductionism [FIDUROD] obsessed with measurement becomes a way of not listening to what human beings are saying about their cognitive experiences in the world—the dismissal of the phenomenological realm. Here the gnomes of FIDUROD cover their ears, as people speak about multiple dimensions of consciousness and the abilities they have developed by emulating elders or by simply attending to the workings of their own mind. Scholars operating in FIDUROD’s knowledge construction zone often only know—or allowed to discuss—what drips through the data reduction spigot. While the spigot can be leaky in times of challenge to normal science, nevertheless there are numerous reduction valves operating in the pipes of knowledge: the epistemological, the cognitive, the political economic, the cultural, the religious, and the ideological all take part in restricting the flow of dangerous information (pp. 140-141).

Note the importance of language here, and of the word. And in the last sentence, he makes the link to his “dangerous knowledge,” here referring to it as “dangerous information” which emphasizes that this is a key because we are on a mission to reveal what this “dangerous knowledge” is all about using keys. I will note here that in his work he makes a distinction between information and knowledge. What are the possible interpretations?  This ties in with his conceptualization of critical complex epistemology and the multidimensional critical complex bricolage as being pathways to construct/enact his notion of a critical science of complexity for the study of cognition and consciousness (see Critical Science of Complexity). He is calling for us to transcend these outdated “science” constructs and to use words to describe our phenomenological experiences with other dimensions of reality and to listen to each other. Note also that he has emphasized “normal science” and he has defined it in the glossary of this chapter as “philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s concept of the work that takes place in the dominant paradigm—the accepted model of producing validated knowledge—using certified methodologies and asking questions from this particular way of seeing” (thus: reductionistic and ideological).

So there you have it: Once again, I have been guided to the exact information needed, just by opening up his book. I don’t understand how that happens. It would take his science of complexity to explain it adequately or to gain a better understanding of how these phenomenological experiences happen so often for me. And in relation to the word “key,” although he has not specifically mentioned the word “key” in the quotation I was led to and cited, using intertextual analysis does lead back to the word “key” in other places in his work. In fact, now that I have looked more closely, on the very end of page 141 where I had instantly opened up the book, the last sentence which carries over to page 142 states, “In this context the traditional critical concern about whose interests are served by officially validated epistemologies and knowledges and the ways of measuring their scientific validity and pedagogical memorization becomes the basis of key pedagogical questions. Such questions about knowledge production forge the rocks on which the critical pedagogical house is built” (pp. 141-142). Here is the key again; this time "the word" is in the form of "questions." And these questions are important, as he stresses, because they "forge the rocks on which the critical pedagogical house is built." As I've discussed, Joe's bricolage is also an advanced form of pedagogy. When engaging in bricolage, what emerges are questions--deeper level questions, which contribute to knowledge production (in my dissertation, I have discussed these in terms of his "Level 3" questions). Of course, bricoleurs make decisions during the process as to which questions to pursue, which ones to save for later, and the like, and the questions keep the bricolage moving forward, especially if the bricoleur is impassioned about their topic of research. In my dissertation, I have posed many new questions for further research, as well as having pursued some of them in the study. This continuous decision-making process could very well be one of the factors that can lead to higher cognition.  It is through analysis and interpretation, combined with the act of writing, and an intuitive, improvisational process that synchronicity seems to appear along with "unleashed creativity." In my experience, they seem to all work together to guide what would otherwise be an extremely complex, almost mind-boggling process. If intuition and synchronicity did not kick in as predicted by enactive theory, it would be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of "choice points" that appear during the research process when using this form of bricolage. Researchers also need to "know" when to "let go" at least for the time being, when they run up against obstacles or dead ends. They may or may not come back to the same question in the future; they may find a new route to answers to those questions. Kincheloe has stated in this same book that the future of humanity will require learning these more intuitive approaches, along with a balance of intellect and emotion and compassion. In my experience, practicing this bricolage process can aid in accomplishing this goal, thus it becomes important to not only use this process ourselves, but to also begin teaching the skills to children. It is a powerful form of pedagogy. Children are already tuned into their intuitive nature or can do so more readily, so it would seem that we, as adults and teachers, have a lot to learn from them--by sharing "the word." Thus, on this site, there is a section for Critical Literacy where these ideas will be explored and expanded upon. And, again, it's easy to see why we need Joe's Critical Science of Complexity so that we can come to better understand these complex dynamics. What has been defined as "normal science" simply does not have the power that is needed to explore the complex interrelationships that become revealed when engaging in the multidimensional critical complex bricolage.

One other important aspect of what has been a brief improvisational study here: Note that in this excerpt he has also mentioned “elders” and that this links back to indigenous knowledges which is a required dimension to his form of bricolage. Again, this also links back to the message that had been provided to me--that all cultures have been safekeeping knowledges in a variety of manners, but only have pieces of the big picture, and that the indigenous peoples have safeguarded some of the most important knowledges— and that we need to bring all of these knowledges together in new ways to create that “dangerous knowledge” that will forever quell those who would want to overpower and dominate us, and there is obviously more which we can't know until we engage in the process; and yet, this truly is what Joe’s work is about. Again, I have no idea what this entails, other than using his bricolage process in all of its dimensions. It could very well also involve discovering knowledge that has been hidden and tucked away in various places around the world. Much like, with guidance, I discovered the yin yang talisman that was buried long ago in my back yard, perhaps these knowledges can only emerge when we engage. I suspect there are great treasures hidden all over the world.

Thus, the journey continues . . . I hope many other people will join in to find the keys, put them into practice, and work passionately toward producing the most powerful (“dangerous”) knowledge ever that will ultimately create many pathways toward freedom, equality, and justice.

I knew there had to be a message…well, there was: It was a love song! What more did I need? Yet, the title came up as “You Cheated” by the Shields, according to the cashier. At first, I thought that had to be wrong. I never cheat. BUT then I thought that maybe the message meant that I had been too focused on ‘worldly things’ lately (which I blame on a guy who nearly forced me and my daughter out of our home and onto the street—why are those rich millionaires and billionaires always named Bill?). Anyway, I thought, ok, that must be the message: I allowed my worldly mundane concerns to prevent me from working on my important mission to write about Joe’s work in ways that everyone can understand; I allowed fear to interfere with working on my most passionate endeavor, which is connecting with Joe and writing about his work in ways that everyone will be able to apply.

The stresses of material existence can do that. However, when I got home and checked the song out on YouTube and listened to it, it was not the same love song that I had heard playing when I first walked into the store (was I on a 'different wavelength'?). Thus, I can only assume that Hermes, the trickster messenger god and father of Eros, had become involved here and the guy at the Eager Beaver store was serving as a messenger to someone else and, thus, now I am passing on that message: Someone cheated. It wasn’t me. Just want to set the record straight. The person who the message is for will know it’s for them.

The rest of the music that came my way everywhere I went yesterday was pretty amazing. Every song was SOULFUL as if to emphasize my statement about Joe having soul. Even if the song had been sung originally by white people, such as “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” instead a SOULFUL version of the song played. It was as if the cosmos heard my statement about Joe (and I love the song he wrote and sang, titled “Soul”), so I was rewarded with only very soulful music everywhere I went on the Pacific Coast. It really seemed as if every "station" had been tuned into Soul music, which is funny since Joe described in his last book how as a young child he'd listen to R&B on a "black radio station" on his transistor radio into the wee hours of the night (I used to do the very same thing!). Here is a list of just a few of the songs that played at the major places we visited yesterday:

Eager Beaver Discount Store – an unidentified love song and several others; You Cheated by the Shields (as reported)

Aquarium Village - You’ve Made Me So Very Happy by the Temptations; Backstabbers by the Ojays  (another song message about cheating; Hermes is persistent about getting this message out)

Spouting Horn Restaurant – Leaving on a Jet Plane by Justin Young; Girl of My Dream by Manhattans; Polynesian People by Norm; We’ve Got Tonight by Bob Seger

And to top off the music messages, at the Aquarium Village, a place I had never visited before, tucked away in the middle of the complex, with a huge winged dragon painted on the front, was an interesting shop -- called Treasure Hunt -- another treasure hunt within a treasure hunt (something similar has happened before -- when we encountered an Art Treasure Hunt within the Kings Valley/The Queen Treasure Hunt)…anyway, ‘something’ made me tell my daughter just as we were reaching the entry of Treasure Hunt, that there was a birthday present in the store for her. We looked and looked and she found nothing. Then just as we were walking out of the store, she spotted a denim jacket that she loved and just had to have. It was in perfect condition, fit her perfectly, and was only $3.50. What a deal! She couldn't get over finding it because she remembered how when she was younger, she loved denim jackets and wore them so often.

And that reminds me, back at the Eager Beaver Discount Store, we were very happy when, while looking at t-shirts, the owner came back and discounted them even more! So both my daughter and I picked up a few new t-shirts. I also picked up a business card for the store and discovered they buy gold, silver, disks, tools, and fishing gear. Now that the debacle with my ‘house’ is over and Bill can forget about getting more dollar bills from me, and now that we are moved and settled into a new house, we are going to have to revive the Eager Beaver Pacific Coast and the King’s Valley Treasure Hunts and use our metal detector. After all, I was guided to finding my very special silver talisman in my own back yard, on Mother’s Day, no less. I do trust my fourth dimension connections. And we have some amazing treasures just waiting to be found yet! I’ve already been informed about the gold in Kings Valley multiple times and treasury notes buried in a metal box (you don’t think they call it Kings Valley for nothing do you?) And then there’s The Queen right in the heart of the valley, as I had discovered on my previous treasure hunts. The Queen is the name the residents of Falls City had given their town as a sort of nickname many years ago. As I had written in my dissertation, it was a very weird coincidence how this all symbolically represented the Fall (Falls City) of the first King (Kings Valley) and Queen (The Queen), Adam and Eve. It makes one wonder what goes on in the consciousnesses of people to create these funny synchronicities in the way they name places.

Anyway, that was our day at the beach yesterday. My daughter ended up with quite a few birthday presents and we both had a great day. And I discovered that there was a reason for all of the soulful music and reminders of treasure hunts. They are essential components of Joe's multidimensional critical complex bricolage. Point made! Those of you who are working on learning how to ‘do bricolage’ are to use Joe’s Critical Hermeneutics and the Hermeneutic Circle to interpret the message(s) in the music. There are no wrong interpretations and there are special messages for everyone. And you really need to try treasure hunting! See what shows up and what music is highlighted on your epistemological journey. The cosmos really is alive and well, very mysterious, and it seems to be full of great surprises and messages if we're paying attention.

At any rate, I do know what my personal message is: Joe had soul, he still has soul, and we are soulfully connected.

P.S. Because Joe’s bricolage is so complicated and most people do not even do academic research (and even many of those who do have a hard time understanding the totality of his version of bricolage), I have been requested to write a book that explains how to apply it in everyday life (something Joe really wants to see happen).

Thus, I am working on a book called Critical Bricolage for Everyday Life and another version called Doing the Critical Bricolage to Improve Your Learning, Writing, Remembering, which will be helpful for high school students, college students, seniors who want to improve their memory skills, and everyone else who wants to engage in lifelong learning. Everyone will benefit from learning to use advanced research skills. These books will be out soon and will be available on my publishing site (http://www.paradispublications.com/) as very low-priced downloads so that everyone can afford them. I will continue to expand on the more academic-oriented information on this site, www.joekincheloe.us, on a regular basis, bit-by-bit, and bring in other researchers since there are a few who are beginning to apply at least aspects of Joe’s theory. We can examine the various parts, keeping in mind that his process is a holistic, complex process, and when applied in its full dimensionality produces more powerful new knowledge and understanding than the various components alone are able to. We need to keep moving forward. I have also been invited to write some articles for various education and research journals, and I will be reviving JOE – the Journal of Epistemology which covers both academic and everyday uses of critical complex epistemology and bricolage.

My messages from the fourth dimensional realms is that although things have gotten off to a slow start, this coming fall and on through next year and from then onward, Joe’s new bricolage process is going to be picked up by more and more people – both for academic purposes and to apply to solving problems of everyday life due to how the theory addresses the increasing complexity we find ourselves surrounded with and is so powerful for finding creative solutions midst the chaos. In my books, I’ll provide detailed explanations of how applying the theory has helped me solve some complicated issues in new ways. I’ve discovered that the legal code is written for us in many instances – it’s just being misapplied by those who hold the keys to power and are determined to misuse the code (and in many cases, ignore the intent of the code) in order to line their pockets, while everyone sits around, “just doing their jobs.” There are viable ways to return the power to the people and I hope by sharing a few examples, other people will be able to apply Joe’s bricolage in their own lives, which can only help us all. And I have not forgotten: February, 14, 2014 is the date for my first Eros and Psyche of the Twenty-First Century book, a very personal “MyStory” in the tradition of Norm Denzin’s new self-ethnographic approaches . . . busy, busy, busy.

I really need to find those treasury notes!

I have lost track of the number of times I’ve brought it to the attention of someone working for the corporate sector (aka 'government') that the policies they are employing are unjust and unethical, only to hear, what in their ‘rational’ minds is an adequate justification: “I’m just doing my job!”

Does “just doing my job” truly justify the types of actions people seem compelled to take for the sake of insane profit, power, and control by the corporate conglomerates that are bent on controlling the entire world and micromanaging each and every individual so that they can extract every last ounce of service or every last penny from us? Be sure to log out of that computer when you use the restroom.

Recently, I learned that the mailbox at my new residence (which is not an apartment) is completely controlled by the U.S. Corporate Post Office and requires that I purchase a key for a whopping $40. And in case one would think technology makes this process efficient, the Post Office informed me it would take 7-10 days for them to change the lock and make a new key.  As I mentioned to the clerk this was far too costly for what people should have to spend and seemed quite ridiculous. If people do not have the money, they are denied access to their own mail at their own home. And we are offered no choice to just use the key already established for the mailbox (the previous person might be a thief, you know). The clerk mentioned that even in California, where crime was high, they did not have to go through this procedure (so why in a little Podunk country hick town?)—as she still took my money, explaining that she was just doing her job.

This is a new measure to first of all, extract money from people, many of whom do not have this kind of money floating around to spend so frivolously. At the same time, it serves multiple purposes for the power-hungry corporate sector that controls this country. It is yet another tactic to ensure that the government knows the exact location of every individual in the United States (and making us pay for it above and beyond the taxes and exorbitant postage we already pay), and while they are doing this we are to be ever so grateful that our wonderful government is protecting us from mail and identity thieves. It amazes me the many ways our ravenous government conceals itself in sheep’s clothing while it has us busy being suspicious of our very neighbors. Do I hear the word “hegemony”?

The “I’m just doing my job” mantra is worn out and very ‘old school.’ It will be a blessed day as more and more people realize that and take actions to either change their company (and school, government, business, etc.) policies, change their own actions, or leave these operations in order to create a more ethical line of work that can serve the greater good.

Yes, there is a price to pay. I pay that price each day I must live yet another day in poverty. There are many jobs I refuse to do on ethical grounds. But on the other hand, the price we will pay if more of us don’t put forth the needed effort is so much more devastating on humanity even in the present when change is already so rapid, and it will only grow worse on into the future. If only more people could see the writing on the wall.

What kind of neighborhood do you want to live in? I just moved out of “Mr. Huxley’s” neighborhood, leaving a trail of change behind me. That’s yet another long story about how someone was “just doing their job” in behalf of a multimillionaire who has no qualms about extracting every last penny from the poorest of the poor and often leaving them more destitute,  even kicked to the street as was attempted upon me and my ‘disabled’ daughter. I am fighting for us but I am also fighting for the people before us and those who will be following us. How about you? What kinds of corporate, educational, governmental politics do you support? What can you do to change things in your own little corner of the world that will contribute to improving life, liberty, freedom, and justice for us all? I will warn you: It takes work. It takes research. And it takes bricolage to pull all of the pieces of the insane policies together that hide where the true power to make corrections lies.

The implications for how education must change are countless and the work bountiful if we choose to contribute to a future in which people will no longer play parrots that just do their jobs without questioning or attempting to change things in ways that value human beings, demonstrate common decency, and support equal rights and justice. It is an enormous job to identify the nooks and crannies between the complicated faux power structure that has been created so that people can 'do their jobs' while we all believe our rights are being protected. It can be frustrating to deal with people who work in those positions who play the ‘powerless’ role when they know it is not right or ethical but they cannot see their way through the forest around them and the "fiction formulas", and it can be emotional. (Fiction formulas are the taken-for-granted knowledges that seldom get questioned; Kincheloe, 1997).

However, no one should just be doing their job any longer anywhere, especially in relation to how we research, teach, learn, and apply what we learn – and how we protect the citizenry (US) from the power wielders and reassert our inalienable rights. Using Kincheloe’s multidimensional critical complex bricolage along with the power of his critical complex epistemology can assist us in seeing many avenues for creating the needed changes whether in schools, places of work, or to bring about more fairness and justice in our daily lives. Must we accept corporate bureaucratic power's definitions, for example, of what constitutes the 'proper' application of legal codes? This is code that quite possibly can protect us from unethical actions against us, if it's interpreted and applied properly, as I will show in a future writing. Always take that diametric opposite reading Kincheloe recommends. As Kincheloe has clearly demonstrated for us, epistemology is power, and YOU have more power than you realize to change things!  There is no excuse any longer for just doing your job -- and the future of this planet depends on more people waking up to this fact and taking actions for change.

What did Kincheloe say about getting to Carnegie Hall? It takes praxis, praxis, praxis! What is praxis? "Critical Knowledge and Informed Practice" (See Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy: An Introduction, page 67).

I have also posted another quotation about radical love on the Raising the Bar for Radical Love page of this site. It comes from page 570 of Kincheloe's Getting Beyond the Facts (Second Edition, 2001). It must be interpreted multidimensionally (including taking a diametrically opposing interpretation) to more fully understand how it represents a great example of his conceptualization of radical love. . . I love the way he uses the educational technique of 'obfuscation' -- a word he had told me one time he loved to find ways to use -- and how his writing forces us to use hermeneutics.

As I take a brief moment to write this, I am right in the middle of dealing with a “heavy-handed” FIDURODian-dominated world. I am currently being forced to deal with the material aspects of existence, those aspects which hold little value for me, although there are minimum necessities, of course, and these are the very things FIDUROD loves to make us worry, fear, fight, and toil over.

Because I must focus on these things, I feel so disconnected from the ‘things’ (‘no-things’) and the people that matter most to me. I feel pulled down into  FIDUROD Land (as I have come to refer to our one-dimensional Western, money-and-power-dominated world). The disease has become global, unfortunately. I know there are places where it has not touched as much and people who are less dominated by it and more motivated by love and what’s right, but they’re so hard to find while I am sitting in the "belly of the beast," as the United States is so often referred to. I am learning to walk through the very few open spaces in the matrix to make connections with those people, but I still bump up against the prison bars of the ‘way things are’ and the people who insist on enforcing them upon other people so that they do not feel so alone in their self-constructed prisons.

This all sounds abstract but in my life there is nothing abstract about it. Due to multiple ‘battles’ on multiple fronts, I was feeling so disconnected that this morning I asked to be guided to something about “love” in Joe’s book, Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy: An Introduction. I randomly opened the book and landed on page 179 and the words that instantly popped off the page were “great wide open.” That’s the freedom we can feel if we are loved and allowed to love. Anything and everything is possible. What does it take to get people to understand this? How can I more fully understand it?

This page happens to be the second page of one of my favorite sections in this book where Joe explains love so well, and the way he explains it aligns precisely with my experiences. It’s titled, “Freire’s Radical Love: Remaking Ourselves and the World” and runs from page 178 to 181. Is he talking about reunion? Twin Flame/Twin Soul reunion? The alchemical union? This is the greatest quest, after all, the greatest love of all, the ‘golden chalice’ . . . and Joe’s very last words in this section refer to a “life long quest.” He’s talking about our ability to access a “higher dimensional ontology.” He states, “Such an effort combined with sharpening the actions for justice becomes the basis of our lifelong quest” (p. 181). If what he's talking about here is what I've experienced, this means we come to know who we are, what we are here to do, and with whom we are working on our missions -- we come to fully know what our passionate purpose is on this planet and how we are to serve humanity, not ourselves. We then realize that there is no place in existence for things like greed, selfishness, self-centeredness, ruthless competition and the like. They work against love, freedom, and justice. If you have the book, I encourage you to read these pages. Joe put it all out there like it is; he explains these relationships and the "enaction" that emerges using Maturana and Varela’s Santiago theory of cognition, and this complex notion of love, knowledge, and action forms the very roots of all of his complex conceptualizations.

I will come back to this another time because it’s so very important. We can’t get anywhere without this form of powerful soul love and spiritual connection. The power of these relationships is discussed in greater detail in my dissertation. I have explored a variety of ontologies, cosmologies, and epistemologies and they all pointed to the same message. Alchemical union or spiritual union creates a “third power” for creation. Without it we are flailing, or as Joe has often put it, “lost at sea.” With it, we can create a new world.

Freire had made note of this in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Joe took it forward from there. Without love, then discourse, for example, is nothing more than rhetoric. Without love, our actions are narcissistic and self-serving. With love, however, we literally have the power to create a whole new world in which there truly can be freedom and justice for all and one in which Lift every voice is the international anthem. With love we can come to understand that this so-called "fairy tale love" that so few believe in anymore is more real than any FIDURODian-constructed relationship which, as Joe discussed on page 666 of his social studies book, comes to be based primarily on economics and the concept of constant competition in a material world, rather than pure, unconditional love. It's time for "The Real Thing."