{"id":575,"date":"2005-12-13T03:15:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-13T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=575"},"modified":"2005-12-13T03:15:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-13T03:15:00","slug":"575","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=575","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

In dreaming, truth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of nights ago I dreamt I was talking with the dean of the university’s library, with whom I have generally had a good collegial relationship.<\/p>\n

Teaching, I told her in the dream, was like getting married and divorced twice in every year.<\/p>\n

On waking, I thought that that simile was a little overstated. Over the top. Overblown.<\/p>\n

Granted, I can think of at least two students whom I hope that I will never see again. Both have the quality of being psychic-energy sinks. In a big lecture class of a hundred bodies you would not know it, but in a small seminar or workshop of eight or ten, their very presence seems to lower the temperature in the room.<\/p>\n

Then too I wonder if I could somehow have done more with them. But in the case of one of the students, another professor in her major department told me that he felt he could not teach her anything, so I wasn’t the only one. In the other’s case, the chair of his major department said frankly, “We’re just babysitting him.”<\/p>\n

Yet was I too unfocused? Stretched too thin? Thinking too much about my own writing, about The Pomegranate<\/em><\/a>, about some special project for my<\/em> dean? (Standard teacher self-criticism, all of it.)<\/p>\n

Now the wheel has turned, and it is time to think about spring-semester classes. Last spring I lost two months to the flu, feeling only half-alive through February and March. All I want is a semester that goes well without nasty surprises.<\/p>\n

None of this explains why my Dreaming Self chose the dean of the library as the other party.<\/p>\n

Tag: Teaching<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In dreaming, truth? A couple of nights ago I dreamt I was talking with the dean of the university’s library, with whom I have generally had a good collegial relationship. Teaching, I told her in the dream, was like getting married and divorced twice in every year. On waking, I thought that that simile was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-575","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":747,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=747","url_meta":{"origin":575,"position":0},"title":"Outed by ‘the chair’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"My department chair (that's how we say it in Academia to avoid the sexism of \"chairman,\" even though it makes him sound like an ornate piece of furniture) recently invited me to speak to one of his classes.To establish my credentials, he handed a copy of my book Her Hidden\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12750,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12750","url_meta":{"origin":575,"position":1},"title":"The Making of an Ethnobotanist in a 1960s University Scene","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 23, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the books on my ethnobotany shelves is Witchcraft Medicine:Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants, a colloboration between Wolf Dieter Storl, Claudia M\u00fcller-Ebeling, and Christian R\u00e4tsch, all three anthropologists and ethnobotanists. M\u00fcller-Ebeling and R\u00e4tsch are married and live in Hamburg, but Storl was born in Germany in 1942\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/storl.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":537,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=537","url_meta":{"origin":575,"position":2},"title":"I still won't shop thereCanadian\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I still won't shop thereCanadian journalist finds Wicca books on sale at Wal-Mart and views with alarm. (Link from Wren's Nest.)Somehow I connect this story with another of today's headlines, about the continuing drop in major crime.Despite variations on this news over the past couple of years, one of my\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":533,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=533","url_meta":{"origin":575,"position":3},"title":"Up and down in Pagan\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Up and down in Pagan publishingLawyer and Wiccan author Phyllis Curott has stirred up a lot of dust in the past couple of months with dark hints of a conspiracy to suppress Pagan books.Some see too many \"Wicca 101\" books or not enough editorial integrity.Elsewhere, Kensington\/Citadel laid off the editor\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":481,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=481","url_meta":{"origin":575,"position":4},"title":"Ghost storyBoulder, Colo., Wiccan priestess\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Ghost storyBoulder, Colo., Wiccan priestess Morwyn has a piece in the current (August 2005) issue of Fate magazine, titled \"Exorcism Spanish Style,\" based on an incident that occurred to her in Santiago de Campostela in 1997.She owns Dunraven House, the latest incarnation of magical-supplies business that has occupied her since\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1125,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1125","url_meta":{"origin":575,"position":5},"title":"Awaiting a Movie about Hypatia","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Hypatia of Alexandria, born c. 355 (?) and murdered by a Christian mob in 415, was a Neoplatonic philosopher and mathematician\u2014math and philosophy were more intertwined then than they are today.Her life and death are part of the plot of Agora, a forthcoming movie directed by Alejandro Amen\u00e1bar. You can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}