Southeast Idaho is a fascinating place. Dry, understated, stark sun-baked desert pushing life up through ancient lava fields, crackling electricity in the air mounting to sudden deluges of rainfall that stir up choking dust and dissipate before it settles. . . Small, agrarian, heavily parochial yet with an undercurrent of mind tied to the Idaho National Electrical and Engineering Laboratories (which is what took my family to the treeless place, from the banks of the Anacostia River in the capitol city of conumeristic capitalistic corptocracy). I resented it at first, failed to fit it seemed. But it was giving me space, solitude, breath, life - even as life piled a mounting burden on my shoulders that eventually drove me to burnout and near destruction). . . Idaho Falls (originally named Eagle Rock), shares a kinship with Huntsville Alabama. Wild landscape, agrarian practice and ties, small close community and a concentration of uncommon minds aimed at mythic work. . . Someone bought a bus and created an interschool, inter-grade-level exchange and exploration program in the shape of a NASA mission. I really wanted to be a number of jobs, and didn't know how to take my assignment. Perhaps only really coming to see it in its light and accept it now. I got to lead the contact and relationship building with the aliens (2nd graders at school we travelled to). . . So thankful for my experiences, and for the pieces of flotsam that surface at just the right moment to catalyze though and understanding. . . #experientaleducation #wonder #delight #discovery #pioneeringspirit #love #wealleverything (at Westside Elementary School)