Human Potential and Its Shadow
Metacognitive Strategy: "Being Metaphor" from the THEORY : the POEMS : the SCRIPTS: the BOOKS :
the ART: the SUGAR ART : the POPE WYD2002
From Attribute Listing/Listening/Observing/Cherishing/Pruning/Embodying to Analogy to “Being Metaphor�
With small children, the abstract concept of 'analogy' has to be simplified with the game of make believe. The child is allowed to experience connectiveness through similarities and differences by guessing the shape of a disguised object. These ‘guesses’ are really analogies because the shape triggers the mind to recall that which ‘reminds, feels, looks, tastes (if edible), like’ or unlike something else. Pretending to be the object or experiencing "metaphor in being" is a fictional leap of the mind at play pretending “as if� being a train, a plane, a snowball, or a space traveller. Identifying the attributes of each object brings to focus the uniqueness of design, function, symmetry, peculiarity…etc. of individuality. The capacities for a "heightened awareness of being" garnered from these three skills - attribute identification, analogy and metaphor, are inseparable and interdependent. Developing these three capacities in children and re-enforcing them with adults, connects us to The Cosmogenetic Principle of life as told in The Universe Story by Swimme & Berry:
Autopoiesis(or uniqueness of being): experienced and accepted through attribute being-ness: listing/listening/observing/ identifying/cherishing/embodying
Differentiation (or multiform and diversity of life): celebrated through analogy's different-ness and like-ness of being
Communion (or relatedness of being): developed with “Being Metaphor� through empathy's indwelling powers of being embodied spirits in communion
"Being Metaphor"
copyright M.A. Nangini
NB: The use of the term "Being Metaphor" an invention of the author, is granted with appropriate credits given to the author at all times; Used without credit constitutes infringement of copyright.
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Simple Steps for Developing The Metacognitive Strategy "Being Metaphor" :
1. From a secret bag (for children up to ten) or from what is hidden under a cloth touch an object and imagine what it is. Write as many word descriptors of your ‘guesses’ as come to mind.
2. Take the object out of the bag. Notice how close your guess is to the real object. Record all the real physical attributes.
3. Using the object from the bag, or another object of your choice, draw a small picture of it at the centre of a large poster-sized paper and web all possible attributes around it. When these are exhausted - colour, size, shape, function, texture, uses etc. extend the web with the statement "It reminds me of" or "It looks like". There is no end to this section - only the limit of paper. (Children often want to extend the sides of the paper.)
4. Connect the attributes to other objects not only in their similarities, but also in their differentness. (Ask: What does it remind me of, look like, feel like, work like.......?)
5. From the concrete switch to the abstract connections of ideas making the familiar different and the different familiar.
6. Next, speak for the object, by pretending to be the object. Become the object. Visualize and feel as the object would under any circumstance. "Being Object" puts us in the position of the object and is useful to develop empathy through metaphor. "Being Butterfly" "Being Salt" "Being Light"
7. For each step create a web to map the connections.
8. Create analogy/metaphor statements from the connections in a poetry format. "Walking In The Light : Being Salt"
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