Chapter Four
Ayaviri
This was a threshold day. Here we were, straddling two worlds, standing at 16,000 feet above the sea; the Pacific slope behind us and the Andean interior in front of us - an endless landscape of peaks rising to between 16 and 24 thousand feet reaching up into a deep cobalt [...]
Continue reading “Andean Soul -PART THREE” »
Chapter Three
Llongote Pass
We woke the next morning to the mouth watering smell of what we found out was fried guinea pig meat, which we had for breakfast before we were given a sweet send off by our hosts. Down an immense valley we walked following well traveled paths leading us back to the [...]
Continue reading “Andean Soul - PART TWO” »
On the Pacific slope of the Peruvian Andes human traffic flows two ways: up and down the steep river valleys from villages perched at 14,000 ft. nestled amidst 18,000 to 24,000 ft. mountains down to sea level AND from valley to valley across the high passes that connect them.
Growers and herders have been [...]
Continue reading “Andean Soul - PART ONE” »
As a young man I had an uncanny instinct for adventure somehow, which often led me to some remarkable people in remarkable places. One such meeting was in the Athabaskan village of Minto, Alaska located just forty miles south of the Artic Circle. It was summer 1979. At solstice the sun never set!
One of [...]
Continue reading “Wisdoms of an Athabaskan Elder” »
It’s always a real eye opener what becomes important to children working together toward a performance.
We recently completed a 12 week program with 2nd and 3rd grade students culminating in a performance entitled Home Planet Earth. The whole project is chock full to the brim with wisdoms and lessons to do with the planet’s [...]
Continue reading “Sing With Spirit” »
We grew up playing lots of Basketball. Everybody had a hoop in their driveway or access to one nearby. Soccer hadn’t caught on yet in the USA. So it was Football, Basketball, Baseball and Hockey. Of those four, the only one that had any kind of compelling rhythm was Basketball.
There was school ball and [...]
Continue reading “Rhythm Ball” »
Tough times are truly the measure of a person’s character, the measure of collective character, be it a community, a city or a nation. There are so many invaluable lessons to be learned from the world’s scattered indigenous peoples. Ways of life and living such as - no one goes hungry! And - no [...]
Continue reading “Charity Challenge” »
Think a moment about the elasticity of time. How it seems to drag on sometimes and whizzzz by other times. Time flies when you are utterly engaged with the all of you. There are slow times and fast times, there are green times and blue times, old times and new times… It really [...]
Continue reading “In 3 Minutes” »
If you don’t understand someone, if something’s foreign to you or simply “off your screen”, if you really just don’t get where someone is coming from - rather than walk away with shrugged shoulders, making a judgment of one kind or another which closes doors, try something different. Try to get inside their shoes, [...]
Continue reading “Learning to Love the Unknown” »
Children learn by catching your sense of discovery, wonder and enthusiasm about a subject, not by having to manage lots of fragments of information. If you don’t want it to go in one ear and out the other, find the way to reconnect yourself (not your students, you) with the joy of discovering that [...]
Continue reading “First Time Every Time” »
Paul Andrew Zeir grew up in the adventurous and expansive landscape where the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains west of Denver, Colorado in the U.S.A. He learned the basics on the piano from the age of 5 and took up the guitar at age 12, writing songs and composing music since he discovered the gift to be able to do so. Music, the wild and free outdoors, the magic and mystery of being an adopted child, rhythmic sports and glimpses of inspired community were his principle mentors growing up. Paul’s search for vocation and mission began with the Institute of Cultural Affairs where he lived and worked with indigenous people in Alaska, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. It was in these small villages that he discovered the spiritual integrity and kaleidoscopic human theater of indigenous peoples around the world. These were profound and indelible influences. He studied at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and Colorado University in Boulder between his travels. His education continues to this day, expanding and deepening through a variety of researches best characterized as the field of Human Development and Education. Because of the many gifted teachers in his life, including his lifelong love Melanie, he discovered solidarity in kinship endeavour with people from all over the world working to pioneer new pathways in the human potential. The world of child education opened up when he became a father of 2 boys. His primary wish as a parent was to provide a rich & loving multi-layered learning ecology in the home and family life which included natural human theater arts. Thus the adventure into children’s education began! His family has put down roots near Santa Fe, New Mexico where they live in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
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