“To teach is to become soil and sun and silence. It is to offer the kind of attention a plant receives when someone truly loves the garden.”
I. Introduction: Teaching as Tending and Shaping
Not all learning happens through explanation—and not all teaching happens through words. Some learning arrives like spring: sudden, slow, and inevitable. Some teaching feels like rain after drought. When I think about teaching that truly transforms, I don’t picture a classroom or a lecture—I picture a field. I picture a loom. I picture the body of a student remembering itself in stillness, in struggle, in joy.
Teaching, at its best, is not performance. It’s presence. It’s permission. It’s the art of holding space for people to come home to themselves.
In this blog, I offer a framework for teaching that integrates the intelligence of the body, the seasons of the land, and the radical alchemy of art. This is a trauma-informed, creative, and embodied approach for facilitators, therapists, educators, and space-holders who want their work to land—in the bones, not just the brain.
II. The Neuroscience of Learning: Safety First
We cannot teach people who are dysregulated. The limbic system, when activated by stress, trauma, or shame, overrides the parts of the brain responsible for language, logic, and retention. Learning happens best when the nervous system feels safe enough to explore, make mistakes, and reorganize itself.
Repetition matters—but it must be rhythmic, not rigid. Think of planting: seeds need sun and darkness, water and rest, before they sprout. So do learners.
Key principle: Regulation before information. Rhythm before rigor.
III. The Body as a Learning Tool
Embodied learning happens when we engage the whole person—not just their intellect, but their movement, sensations, and emotions. A somatic approach honors the truth that memory lives in muscle, insight lives in breath, and healing lives in connection.
Art helps us access this. So does the land.
Drawing a shape, molding clay, walking barefoot on the earth—these experiences teach through presence, not pressure. They invite students to know something through themselves, not just about it.
Try this in your next class:
Invite students to stand and sway as they reflect on a difficult concept. Ask them where in the body they feel resistance. Let the body become the text.
IV. Creating Psychological Safety: The Invisible Curriculum
No one learns when they feel shamed, unseen, or unsafe.
As teachers, we must tend to the emotional weather of the room. Psychological safety is not a bonus—it’s the soil in which all learning takes root.
Think of a potter’s wheel: without steadiness, the clay collapses. A good teacher holds a steady center, offering warmth, containment, and curiosity.
This doesn’t mean we never challenge our students—but it does mean we never push them beyond what their bodies can hold.
V. Teaching as Co-Regulation and Co-Creation
You are not the source of your students’ wisdom—you are a mirror, a rhythm, a regulator. Just like farmers don’t make plants grow, teachers don’t make students transform. We create conditions. We listen. We prune. We witness.
Teaching is not a download. It’s a dance.
Think of yourself as both co-regulator and co-creator:
- Regulator: You bring your nervous system as a steady presence in the room.
- Co-creator: You respond to what’s emerging instead of forcing outcomes.
In farming, this is called attunement. In art, it’s called flow.
VI. Trauma-Informed Teaching: Six Principles from the Land
SAMHSA outlines six pillars of trauma-informed care. When translated into a teaching context, they align beautifully with the rhythms of nature and creative process:
- Safety – Physical and emotional safety is non-negotiable. Use grounding rituals, clear agreements, and a warm tone.
- Trustworthiness – Be consistent. Be transparent. Let students know what’s coming.
- Peer support – Encourage connection. Normalize struggle.
- Collaboration – Co-create the learning. Invite feedback. Share power.
- Empowerment – Let students lead. Offer choices. Honor voice.
- Cultural humility – De-center yourself. Make space for diverse ways of knowing.
In trauma-informed teaching, you don’t assume permission—you invite it.
“Would you like to participate in this next activity, or simply observe from where you are?”
“Let’s take 90 seconds to feel our feet. Breathe. Come back into our bodies before we move on.”
VII. The Spiritual and Existential Dimension of Teaching
Some learning can’t be measured. Some growth has no worksheet.
There is something holy about the moment when a student says, “I never thought about it like that before.” In that moment, you’re not just teaching—you’re witnessing birth.
Teaching, like gardening and art, is a practice of surrender. You may not see the fruits of your work in the moment. Some seeds bloom in the next season—or the next life.
Teaching is also grief. It’s letting go of control, of ego, of attachment to outcomes.
Can you love your learners even when they resist you?
Can you trust the process even when it looks messy?
VIII. Teaching with the Seasons: Structure from the Land
Use seasonal rhythms to guide your teaching arc. Here’s a land-based curriculum map:
| Season | Stage of Learning | Teaching Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | Emergence | Safety, curiosity, orientation |
| Summer | Growth | Exploration, expansion, play |
| Fall | Harvest | Integration, reflection, expression |
| Winter | Compost | Rest, unlearning, renewal |
This model can be used in workshops, courses, or even therapeutic group work.
“We’re in the Fall stage now. Let’s reflect on what we’ve gathered.”
IX. Common Mistakes Teachers Make
- Overloading content: More information ≠ more transformation.
- Forcing growth: You can’t make a tree bloom faster by shouting at it.
- Holding power unconsciously: Trauma survivors are attuned to hierarchy. Make your power visible and shared.
- Teaching from anxiety: If your nervous system is dysregulated, students will feel it.
Ask yourself: Am I teaching from fear, or from faith in the process?
X. Natural and Creative Teaching Exercises
Here are grounded, trauma-sensitive exercises you can integrate into your teaching spaces:
1. Clay Processing
Provide soft clay or modeling material. Invite students to sculpt how they feel before and after a lesson. Clay holds emotion and allows for silent expression.
2. Seasonal Mapping
Have students map their learning journey onto the four seasons.
Prompt: “What part of your learning is blooming? What part is composting?”
3. Nature Mandalas
Go outside. Collect leaves, stones, petals. Let students create a mandala representing the theme of the lesson. This encourages collaboration, embodiment, and nonverbal integration.
4. Embodied Drawing
Ask students to draw their emotional or somatic experience of a topic using color and abstract shapes. No art skills needed—only curiosity.
5. Soil Journaling
Pass around a handful of soil. Invite students to smell, hold, and feel it. Ask: “What needs to be rooted more deeply in your life or practice?”
6. Teaching in Silence
Try holding space for five minutes without words. Use breath, gesture, or shared presence to invite reflection. Let meaning arise from stillness.
7. Harvest Ritual
At the end of a course, invite students to bring a symbolic object, write a reflection, or create a collective poem. Mark the end with a closing ritual or offering.
XI. Final Reflections: Teaching as Soil, Teaching as Soul
Teaching is sacred work. Whether you’re in a classroom, a group circle, or a Zoom room, your presence has power. Not because you are the expert—but because you are willing to be present with people as they remember themselves.
You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be attuned.
Teach like soil: stable, nourishing, alive.
Teach like an artist: playful, fluid, brave.
Teach like a farmer: patient, rhythmic, and in love with the unseen.
Because in the end, we are not only teaching facts or skills.
We are teaching people how to feel safe enough to grow.