Self-Identity
As I look around my classroom and stare into the faces of my students, oftentimes what I see is a blank canvas. Dull dark eyes, expressionless. As a teacher I reach out and put myself out there for them to see me. I talk of my successes but more so my struggles. In life, my family and career. I then circle around back to the beginning to state out loud, “who am I and how did I get here?” Together with my students I participate in a journey of self-discovery.
J. Drew Lanham expresses this as, “to help others understand nature is to make it breathe like some giant: a revolving, evolving, celestial being with ecosystems acting as organs and the living things within those places-humans included-as cells vital to its survival. My hope is that somehow I might move others to find themselves magnified in nature, whomever and wherever they might be.”10
I came to this conclusion by introducing nature as a kind of overlapping blanket of all of the following three: the mythology of the Aztecs; the present reality of a social issue as immigration; and the spawning of the genre known as magical realism, which some would argue takes Latin America as its birthplace and rise to prominence in the literary world. But how can we define what nature is and how can we understand its role with an ancient people’s culture and religion as well as the controversial issue of immigration? It is this exact undertaking which will guide us to self-discovery. If we are to understand what is to become of ourselves, then should we not discover all that is now and all that was? But is this idea of how we see time as misunderstood as the countless things we see clearly in the dark, but when the light pours into windows we find ourselves as blind as a newborn taking its first breaths. Robin Wall Kimmerer states,
In the way of linear time, you might hear Nanbozho’s (First Man-part man, part manido-powerful spirit being) stories as mythic lore of history, a recounting of a long ago past and how things came to be. But in circular time, these stories are both history and prophecy, stories for a time yet to come. If time is a turning circle, there is a place where history and prophecy converge—the footprints of First Man lie on the path behind us and on the path ahead.2
Whether time is linear or circular, we must understand that this experience is a shared one, inter-connected through your idea of time to realize that we are not alone in this journey. Though our company on this journey does come from the first tribes, we are accompanied also by all who walk with us: the earth, the wind, the trees, the sky. Mother Nature is the first witness on our journey, a journey of self-discovery. A journey we have walked, one we walk today and one we have walked before. In the words of Kimmerer,
…some contemporary scholars who see in the social pathologies and relentlessly materialist culture the fruit of homelessness, a rootless past. America has been called the home of second chances … But can Americans, as a nation of immigrants, learn to live here as if they were staying? With both feet on the shore? What happens when we truly become native to a place, when we finally make a home? Where are the stories that lead the way?3
Through our seminar study, readings, and discussion I came to realize that nature itself was the all-encompassing force which surrounds itself. It is nature which bequeaths the past and the present. It is nature which spins both reality and magic together, to forge an unequaled compromise in literary form. To capture the essence of nature, harness its power and come to an understanding. What more generous gift can be offered to my students than the chance for them to become observer, participant, and keeper of this idea we call nature. These themes of the past and the present, at once set apart but now combined into one in the genre of magical realism. I will present that our use of nature can be used as the glue which holds all three together. As I moved forward with the unit on magical realism I began to realize how nature is found in its most basic forms throughout the histories and tales of Latin America.
When introducing the Aztec gods, we will begin to discover how the earth and heavens are so powerfully represented. Lucia Nunez shows us,
In accordance with other meso-American traditions, the Aztecs experienced "nature" in all its complexity not as a mere mundane entity out there, but rather as deeply connected with superhuman powers and beings, manifesting themselves in countless aspects of the surrounding world and a sacred landscape.4
Next, we enter the realm of the present which is represented with the issue of immigration. An aspect of our conversations will be focused on the natural landscapes immigrants endure passing through: the jungles, the arid deadly deserts, and the bending rivers.
We conclude with our readings on magical realism. Not only will my students read of places and magical characters, they will discover more about themselves, the past. “The greatest discovery in life is self-discovery. Until you find yourself, you will always be someone else. Be yourself,” Myles Munroe.5
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