08/25/2004: "Can you feel my aura?"

As you may know, the World Council of Churches is in the middle of a "Decade to Overcome Violence," complete with a US emphasis for 2004. On the Decade Web site, they include links to a variety of events and resources. One organization the DOV recommends as a source of "peace materials" caught my eye. Called the "Earth Child Institute," it is described this way:

The Earth Child Institute is an international not-for-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) that is dedicated to the development and implementation of interdisciplinary and multicultural programs for peace minded quality education. Re-introducing holistic and traditional ways of teaching and learning into a modern day context, all Earth Child workshops and curriculum materials are designed with three key principles in mind.

Individual Empowerment and Personal Accountability Community Values and Social Action Planetary Stewardship and Global Interconnectedness.

Our goal is to inspire children and young people to get involved on many different levels of awareness. Together, we face challenges relating to interpersonal conflict, misuse of power and issues of justice, as well as to Mother Earth and her life systems. Always seeking to inspire personal commitment in every individual to bring about peaceful relations and to ensure safe and adequate freshwater resources for all. [The Connecticut-based educational organization obviously needs a better translator.]

Here are a few excerpts from a sample lesson, "Is Seeing Believing?":

Lesson Objective: To develop trust in the fact that many of the things that are truly real in life on Earth today are invisible. As we connect to the energy of the earth in an intimate way we are consciously in touch with all that is. Using magnets, and the properties of physical science as a basis for understanding, we become able to "trust" some things that we cannot see.

Description of Activity: Hand out the pencils and magnets and ask the students if they know what they are. Ask them to turn one over on the pencil and see it float in mid-air. Can you make them touch? No. The space between the magnets is called an electromagnetic field. You can not see it, but you can feel it in a way, and it is very real.

Next, each person can work with a partner. Rub hands together vigorously for a few moments and then palms forward toward the other person until you feel a tickling vibration. This is the human electromagnetic field or aura. Mine and yours touching.

Take time to talk about how this feels. You can also do the same thing with plants, trees and other forms of life. Mother Earth herself is magnetic. In this moment of exploration and wonder, each participant can close his/her eyes for a moment, with feet flat on the floor, or ground if you are out of doors and feel your connection to the vibration of the Earth. (Note: I have found that about 75% of participants, children and adults are able to physically "feel" the energy)

You can take this activity to many places depending on time constraints, age and interest of the group. There are many other things that you can do with the magnets in subsequent lessons, such as showing how they work from beneath a table (or desk) and talking about polarity of the earth, and opposites.

Note: A great addition to the human energy field activity is to construct a pendulum out of string and a paper clip and talk to your body. This teaches children to trust their inner wisdom, knowing that all the answers are within.

"All the answers are within?" What are the questions? Oh, wait, I can think of one: what's the WCC doing endorsing New Agey stuff like this?