A Brockwood Affair: Kira’s Story Part Six

Posted on March 11, 2013 by karen

Kira Kenley will share her creative dilemmas and decisions every Friday over the coming months. You can read her earlier posts here: 

Last week, I gave my first series of workshops at Brockwood, a private boarding school in Hampshire founded by Jiddu Krishnamurti, and sister school to Rishi Valley School, India, which I visited last year.

My stays in this beautiful setting are always creatively nourishing. As usual, the first thing to impact me is the vast space. Living in a built up city, such space is alien in my everyday life. It is most welcome on these retreats.

I first encountered Jiddu Krishnamurti over a decade ago when a then friend gave me a book. The friendship fell away for no apparent reason, as sometimes happens, however the revolutionary insights of this man still fill my everyday. Krishnamurti was a very rare human being who lived and died in the last century. His observations, which he demands I question and doubt, call upon me to be aware and to question what it means to be truly alive. Moment. To. Moment.

At Brockwood, I continually meet people who question how we live and consider whether it is possible to be free despite our conditioned society. This is foremost to how the students are educated and it has been the underlying theme of my workshops.

Over five days, I gave 3 workshops and although each group dynamic was very different, we all ended up in the same place; the realization that to be truly creative requires the rejection of the known, our conditioning, and to embrace the vast unknown, where freedom lies and all ‘new’ ideas are born.

Teaching floated into my life a year ago and with it a great hunger to learn. Each person I have the privilege of teaching, shows me so much about my own voice: the singer and the writer, I have come to know both voices to be one and the same just heard in different ways. Teaching is an important part of my creative development; it requires me to really ponder the rules and to learn how to apply them without getting trapped inside their bureaucracy.

At the end of my time at the school, there was a conversation about what next. The question would I consider becoming a visiting teacher in the future? I could visit and teach once a month. This would mean a new supply of students and an extra income stream. The answer, a resounding YES! It seems the resource flow is starting to open up. Thank you Brockwood! Thank you! Thank you!