Learning to Walk

My younger son turned nine months old last week, and for some time now, he’s been pulling himself up to a standing position and even taking some steps while supported… all the normal skills and stages that are part of a toddler learning to walk. He pulls himself up on the coffee table, the bookshelf (which is securely fastened to the wall… no need to worry), the refrigerator, and even the dog. However, his first and seemingly still favorite things to pull himself up on are the other people in the house: me, my wife, and our older son. The pulling up actually started before crawling, and then when the little guy mastered crawling, I was astonished at how passionately he would move across the room with the clear purpose of taking hold of my pant leg, placing his feet carefully under his hips, and standing erect beside or beneath me.

It really grabbed my attention, the on-all-fours zoom towards the place that I was standing in order to use my legs for the sake of imitating what I was doing. Perhaps, at first, it was Fatherly Pride and the joy of recognition, that this behavior should make such an impression on me. However, after giving it just a bit of thought, it made perfect sense to me, both as a developmental behavior that precedes walking and as an allegory for how we develop as humans in nearly every aspect of life.

We are born with the instinct to imitate our caregivers; as a highly social species and creators of cultural patterns that differ from community to community in both profound and subtle ways, we survive by learning to fit in and by developing the skills necessary for contributing as an interdependent member of the group. And so of course, we learn to walk while holding to the literal coattails of our parents and other caregivers. And isn’t the same true for anything we learn? Learning to talk, to ride a bike, kick a field goal, swim the breaststroke, balance a checkbook, draft a dissertation, and indeed, raise children… We learn them all by metaphorically “pulling ourselves up” on those who have already been practicing the skill and - whether consciously or unconsciously - using their practice as a support of sorts for our own development.

As an adult today, I still think of watching my mother sketch whenever I put pencil to paper; and I think of being in the garden with my father whenever I catch the scent of tomato vines. But of course, the people from whom we learn do not have to be physically present in our lives, but we pull ourselves up on their work, their creative output, or their legacy. When I look back on my own life through this lens, I see how, as a child, my musical sensibilities developed at the feet of Billy Joel and Paul Simon; as a piano major in college, I clung to the knees of Rachmaninoff and Beethoven; as a young music teacher, I was delighted to look up to the work of Howard Gardner, Bennett Reimer, and Lucy Green; and, having in recent years dived into the study of depth psychology, mythology, and archetypal cosmology, I’m elated (and humbled) to take toddling steps while trailing behind giants like Carl Jung, James Hillman, Michael Meade, and Richard Tarnas.

And how is it that we experience the work of others except as stories that we are told or tell ourselves about those others? And so, when it comes to our inner experience, a sense of Story is really what we pull ourselves up on the most. When we are young, we learn fairytales, watch movies, and are taught religious stories. Depending on the story that our own soul is trying to tell, some of these stories will become our favored launching off points as we are developing our psycho-spiritual “legs”. We will internalize their energetic patterns – and the wisdom and/or folly they bear – and they will make a significant impact on who we understand ourselves to be and how we see our place in the world.

In the education industry, we have a word for the process of a more experienced or more knowledgeable “other” providing supports that are proximal to a new skill or understanding being developed by a young person: we call it scaffolding. Picturing the image of scaffolding around a building, we might imagine a young learner using the provided support to make their way up, down, and around this new knowledge or ability, tending to its construction with the materials and tasks needed to make it sturdy, steady, and lasting. It also seems to be a fitting parallel to the image of the child holding onto their parent’s hands or legs while they are learning to walk.

When I think about the ways we use scaffolding to work on buildings, my mind goes to three main purposes: to construct, to restore, and to embellish. In the same fashion, the stories we engage with can build up our character; restore our vitality when we’ve become worn down; and add a richness of being to our lives. When it comes to growing and learning new things, I’m aware of the hesitation we may feel to step away from the structures that have been supporting us. As a father who already feels at times that his kids are growing up too fast, I’m also aware of the flip side of the coin, the hesitation to accept that someone we’ve supported is ready to walk on their own. And yet I know, when it comes to the construction, restoration, or beautification of a building, we can’t truly appreciate what it is we’ve helped to create until the scaffolding has been removed.

As many things do, scaffolding bears another association. At a certain point in history, to say “the scaffold” was to refer to the structure upon which criminals were executed. Scaffolding was also the word for the platform upon which the body of a deceased loved one would be displayed during a funeral. So, just as scaffolding props up those who are building, growing, and developing, it also elevates those who are passing away. This points to the idea that the creation of something new always requires the death of something old. For example, rarely does a toddler who has mastered walking return to crawling on all fours as a primary way of getting around; crawling, as form of locomotion, metaphorically “dies” as the skill of walking is developed.

I already mentioned that, as a father, I sometimes feel a sense of loss related to my sons growing beyond the endearing markers of infancy and toddlerhood, while simultaneously feeling joy at the sight of them becoming more independent. I believe we might also have the same attitude towards ourselves. Sometimes, when we get the sense that life is calling us in a certain direction – or perhaps a new stage of maturity – we resist, because it means leaving behind who we have known ourselves to be.

All this reminds me of a time in my own life when I was struggling to accept change – specifically the end of a romantic relationship. During that time, I “pulled myself up” on the story of another young man, which I became familiar with in the form of an audiobook given to me by a friend. In his story, he takes a long road trip on somewhat of a whim after his life seemed to become stale. Much like the archetypal Hero’s Journey outlined by Joseph Campbell, the author emphasizes that the story waiting to unfold within us and around us cannot do so until we leave what is familiar. And so I left, just as he did; I packed my car and took a solo trip cross-county, spending two months sleeping in a tent, on the couches of friends and strangers, and in a sublet room on the other side of the continent. I was holding to the journey of another as I was “learning to walk” without the familiar supports of my family and friends around.

I mention this event in my own life to illustrate the musings of today’s episode, but also to promote the MeadowSong Podcast and some of my other work. Several years after I took my cross-country trip, I decided to write the whole experience down as a full-length memoir, which now (twelve years later) is nearing completion. If you enjoy this show, I encourage you to check out our Patreon page. There you can join the MeadowSong Podcast listeners club, and for only $2/month gain access to additional musical content and the opportunity to be included in some of my upcoming projects. I’m offering Part I of my cross-country memoir (which bears the working title Honey and Flame) as a thank-you gift for becoming a member. You can learn more at patreon.com/meadowsongpodcast.

Having gone through life pulling ourselves up on our caretakers, on stories, and on the work of notable others, the hope is that we may eventually come primarily to pull ourselves up on our own inner other, the unique Divine Spark we each have within us, which has been called by many names over the millennia: the daimon, the genius, the imago deo, the anima/animus, the Holy Spirit, the Godself, and the soul. There is a story being told by the deep soul (or deep Self) within each of us. That story is truly unique and deeply interconnected with the greater Story of Life. As scaffolding, Life and the soul provide us with dreams and daydreams, imagination, mythical stories, works of art, hunches, gut feelings, and synchronicities in our lives and in the cosmos. Then it falls to us to take hold of these supports and take steps with ever-increasing determination and confidence in the direction our destiny.