Making Headlines: A Message from the Head of School
Dear Middlesex families –
As we move quickly toward the completion of fall exams and the start of the winter holiday, I wanted to share a reflection I had at this time a couple of years ago, as I was serving as acting Head of a school that Rachael and I had helped to establish in Beijing, China. In the dead of Winter, 2018, Beijing was treated to an unusual sight: a super blue blood moon. This is when the full moon (one of two this month, hence “blue” moon) passed quite close to the earth, appearing larger and brighter, but this time the pass combined with a lunar eclipse that partially scattered the sun’s light through Earth’s atmosphere and dust, giving the moon a reddish tint. The result was a spectacular view.
Or so I was told. My reflection was occasioned by the fact that I missed that spectacular view. While dozens of boarding students, teachers and faculty children were together out in the quad of that school on a clear night marveling at the sight, I was in my apartment on the eighth floor of one of the residential buildings, doing email and preoccupied by the events of the day. To this day, I regret that lost opportunity, and I won’t have a chance to see another super blue blood moon until 2037.
I think we so often miss beauty – and the opportunity for joy and wonder that beauty affords us – simply because we are distracted. The press of our busy days and our chattering minds means that we tend not to look for the beauty and goodness that is always and everywhere around us. This can be particularly pronounced in winter, when light and warmth (and sometimes our equanimity) can be in short supply.
I do believe that beauty and goodness surround us, even in winter, and that we can “see” it if only we look for it. If we cock our head to one side, to see things differently, or hear the world without distraction, what seems mundane takes on new richness and meaning. Perhaps this is what Thoreau was getting at when he moved to the outskirts of Concord to live deliberately by Walden Pond. It is certainly part and particle of our Mindfulness program here at Middlesex. When we observe, deeply, we begin to see. And our experience of the world can be fundamentally changed.
We are coming up on the new year. The holiday and the break from school will give us an opportunity to slow down and diminish our distractions. During this time away we are able to attend to beauty, and goodness, and the possibility of seeing the world differently – and those possibilities will be everywhere. It might be in the laughter of a family gathering, a children’s game of dreidel, or in the precious bite of a winter snowfall that will, soon enough, be transformed into the warmth of spring.
So, in these coming weeks, we will all have the chance to open our eyes and ears to the loveliness of the world. Like you, I will spend time with my family, eat good food, and enjoy the elevated spirit of the season. I will slow down a bit. Perhaps I will do less email. And this winter, unlike the winter of 2018, I will not miss seeing the moon.
Warm wishes to you all.
David
