{"id":87614063,"date":"2006-06-13T22:20:07","date_gmt":"2006-06-14T06:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/?p=87614063"},"modified":"2006-06-13T22:20:09","modified_gmt":"2006-06-14T06:20:09","slug":"baraka-for-four-year-olds-what-was-i-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/?p=87614063","title":{"rendered":"Baraka for four year olds – what was I thinking?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, about two weeks ago, Riplechip and I watched part of Baraka<\/a> on the computer, and I thought it would be interesting for him to see\/hear this incredibly beautiful film. He was rapt. From the Ramayana monkey chant<\/a> to the crazed high-speed footage of traffic in New York and pedestrian crosswalks in China.<\/p>\n

I wanted him to see how freakin’ big and amazing and beautiful the world is, even if it’s a little scary at times. The volcanic craters and clouds moving over mountains. The sun in full eclipse, and thousands upon thousands of flamingos looking more like gnats than birds. The tribes from all over the world with their dances, and how movement and music and animals and Earth all intertwined.<\/p>\n

Here’s a little clip<\/a> that blends a bunch of the movie together, but only one song. It doesn’t do the entire work justice, but gives you an idea of what sorts of things Rip was having poured into his little brain.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed trying to explain the guy that’s “walking zen<\/a>” with the little bell, and bowl, and awesome hat. We talked a little about meditation, and I tried my best to explain to Rip that he (the monk, not Rip) rang the bell to remind himself to be in the moment, and not to think about anything else… Rip looked at me as if to say “Well, yeah…” and then asked “Then why does he need the bowl?”<\/p>\n

“…”<\/p>\n

Q: How does one explain zen to a preschooler?
\nA: How doesn’t one?<\/p>\n

…so we got about halfway through the thing two weeks back. Tonight, we watched the other half while I folded clothes, and Tatertot (now 8.5 months old) did these great faceplanting attempts at crawling on the bed, and unfolding the laundry daddy was silly enough to put within frogleaping distance.<\/p>\n

We started around here<\/a>, with some funky Brazillian (?) music and subways, churches and all sorts of craziness, and it was really cool… He even made the connection between the thousands of chickens being sorted and moved via slides, and the people commuting into subways, and after I assured him that the baby chicks weren’t being hurt when their beaks were being burnt (I know I’m gonna have to explain that to him as soon as *I* understand it myself), he was totally into the movie again…<\/p>\n

But then there was some sequences that were about, well… death, dying, war, destruction. Pyramids. Temples of long-forgotten gods. Funeral pyres. Auschwitz. Piles of skulls and bones. Photos of thousands of people up on walls. Faces of kids not much older than him staring back in staggering black and while. People who are no more, and children who never had a chance.<\/p>\n

Cars\/trucks\/tanks blown to bits. Roads engulfed in flames. Guys with rifles standing next to piles of RPGs and 50cal rounds.<\/p>\n

We talked as the movie kept going, and we tried to make sense of burying statues with people, and why you’d need a standing army when you’re dead, and he said “If I died tomorrow, I’d be pretty sad.”<\/p>\n

“Me too kiddo, me too…”<\/p>\n

Q: How can one explain war to a preschooler?
\nA: Historically, I hope.<\/p>\n

But we got through it, and put him to bed.<\/p>\n

See? We don’t just<\/i> watch fun stuff<\/a> together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, about two weeks ago, Riplechip and I watched part of Baraka on the computer, and I thought it would be interesting for him to see\/hear this incredibly beautiful film. He was rapt. From the Ramayana monkey chant to the crazed high-speed footage of traffic in New York and pedestrian crosswalks in China. I wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87614063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87614063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87614063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87614063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87614063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87614063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87614063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}