Finding your tether with Aruni - Patricia Stitson LXD

One of the most significant confessions I had ever heard was when I walked into my first Linguistic Anthropology class on exchange at Humboldt State University. “First I want to let you know that, however strong my intention and clear my language, it is unlikely that you will understand me as I hope you will.”

Roy D’Andrade’s focus on conceptualizing cultural through schema theory [ref.] had captured my attention and had motivated me to locate a national exchange opportunity from USM to HSU where I then sat.

So, even at that point, I was aware of how culture may affect the way we respond to a query or challenge. At the same time, I had not brought it down to my personal experiences deeply affected how my decision making and interactions.

That is another post. Here is a prompt for a reflection/discussion about Aruni’s “tether”.

The Cambridge Dictionary is offers a single literal definition: to tie someone or something, especially an animal, to a post or other fixed place, with a rope or chain. 🫤

Merriam-Williams offers a bit more latitude of interpretation:

1a: a line (as of rope or chain) by which an animal is fastened so as to restrict its range of movement
1b: a line to which someone or something is attached (as for security) A crewman can clip the tether of his harness to the [safety line] and leave it clipped as he makes his way forward and aft.
2: the limit of one’s strength or resources. I’m at the end of my tether.

If you add in “spiritual” to a Google query of tether and that adds too many personalized definitions to list. At large we all carry to concept of having 1b: a line…(as if for security). It may be a person, place, or thing.

One of my favorite examples of this is from a friend’s FB post stating, “My happy place, cruising and listening to [we call all probably fill in our own blank]”

But if you can’t get out here 👉 then what do you do? An associate once stated that she would hold her hand under the board room table and dig her (lengthy) fingernail into her palm 😖.

Aruni offers us much gentler solution that is applicable anywhere, eyes wide open. I am writing this especially people who think “meditation is impossible – I can’t clear my mind!”.

"The breath will take us out of the sympathetic fight flight freeze nervous system through the vagal nervous system into the parasympathetic - so use the breath another few good long letting go breaths in and a good exhale out and now let your breath return to normal..."

A woman sits deeply in the grass as if tethered. In the background people are arguing in a surreal-looking office shrouded in a transparent bubble. The bubble sits behind her head as if it is a dream bubble. However, where she sits it is quiet and there are some birds and other forest animals around her. She is wearing casual business clothes but they have a slight glow to them.

- Aruni Nan Futuronsky,

Author and Legacy Faulty at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.

To return back to the importance of language and, further, to tether 😆 it back to my work in learning experience design is to point out how accessible Aruni makes what may feel daunting to some, so simple and kind.