Three Books: One New Vision of Learning
Reframing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and a Wrinkle In Time as a new way of solving and reframing wicked problems.
After a very intense summer camp at Mezzacello Urban Farm around sustainably using wind energy I had a powerful dream. This dream revolved around three books: "Alice's Adventures in wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl, and "A Wrinkle In Time" by Madeline L'Engle. The dream was a response to a conversation I had with the kids about their favorite books and why.
Dreams Are a Form of Currency and Power
Dreams are a currency here at Mezzacello Urban Farm. Like all dreams, mine are usually a synthesis of ideas, conversations, fears, failures, and details pulled together from the previous day. The magic at Mezzacello is what I call “The Snake” or the “Cosmic Oroborous”.
An image of the Oroboros: The snake that eats its own tail.
The snake whispers aspects and commentary of the dream through and to me as an extension of my consciousness. A philosophic and virtual Virgil who accompanies and encompasses me while I am decending into the chaos of my nine pits of subconsciousness. Yes, I am weird.
Disclaimer:
Yes, I am aware that is is considered rude and boring to relate one’s dreams to others. There is very little benefit to the “other mind” being asked to imagine the power of another’s dream. But if we do not share and act on our dreams our culture stagnates and declines. This was the message that the snake had to share with me last night.
The Dream
The Cast of Characters, The white rabbit, The greedy entity, The tesseract-empowered voice of truth, sustainability, balance, truth, and harmony, and the oroboros.
The Exposition
In the dream, Mezzacello Urban Farm was in danger of being absorbed by a greedy entity (in the dream played brilliantly and for FREE by the fabulous Hannah Waddingham of “Ted Lasso” Fame) . The greedy entity is INTENT on owning the farm and selling it off in pieces for profit. This would devastate the farm and end an enclosed and sustainable world populated by children and talking farm animals (led by Alice Cooper, my white rabbit dressed as THE White Rabbit). The loss of the farm would result in leaving nothing to sustain anything or anyone else.
My passionate, talking rabbit (with articulating hands and thumbs), Alice Cooper, was trying to convince the other animals (who were not so motivated, articulated, or as clever as Alice) and a group of children to rise up against the tyrant who was threatening to take over the farm, sell it, and destroy it. The villainous vision of the Greedy Entity was to transform the urban farm into a malignant machine that exists solely for profit and private enrichment.
The Climax
Just as Alice was about to surrender and give up all hope, and the panic in the animals and children was building to a crescendo, a new voice appeared in the dream. The voice was that of a child who could live outside time and space, could interact with baryonic matter, but only within a narrow banwidth in time and space. The child was there to remind the embattled and terrified children and animals AND the self-absorbed antagonist, the greedy entity, that both realities were acceptable, but that truth is not a zero-sum game.
The Tesseract-empowered voice of truth
The Denouement
Alice Cooper, his gang of misfit kids, and the other farm animals already had EVERYTHING they needed to solve this problem — but they lacked insight and reference. The greedy entity already had everything it needed but lacked compassion and purpose in its lust for control and power. The voice of the oroboros-aligned, tesseract-empowered child was to reflect on what it means to have wisdom, purpose, and community and to find solutions to both sides of a terrible problem in that shared moment of clarity and in pursuit of common goals.
Editor’s Note: I am apparently all of these characters - The talking rabbit, the Hannah Waddingham greedy entity, and the Tesseract-powered voice of truth here as Mezzacello Urban Farm is in financial danger due to low enrollment numbers of campers and the loss of multiple federal, state, and city grants in 2025. Donations welcome.
The Resolution and Insights of The Dream
Children are born innocent and can only absorb so much wisdom, nuance, and experience in a given time.
The keyhole (“Alices Adventures in Wonderland”)
Children are often asked to live in fear and confusion in a world that seems simultaneously amazing and dangerous and they are given very few tools to feel empowered by the world around them.
The key (“Charlie in the Chocolate Factory”)
Children need to be taught empathy, community, balance, and how to turn a problem over in their hands and minds to find new truths and patterns that are there, but remain unseen.
The STEM Door (“A Wrinkle In Time”).
We want children to be sufficient, capable, competent and confident. We encourage children to be heroes and want to learn so they can have surprise, delight, purpose, metacognition, curiosity, and want to learn. What we need are new keys to open old doors and allow children to peer through and reframe wicked problems with information, insight, experience, curiosity and creativity.
In short, we want them to feel seen, valued, and to have them believe that they can be the hero of their story.
The Morals Of The Dream
We need to reframe STEM, problem-solving, creativity, innocence, and leadership into a new context for children — and their community.
We and our children need to UNDERSTAND and REMEMBER that to be a hero, you first have to do something that SAVES someone else, not just yourself.
Then we need education that models and allows children to share that truth to build FOR and WITH others.
So yeah, that was the dream. It ended well. The hero voice from the fifth dimension was actually just an echo of the fear and panic of the rabbits, chickens, ducks, fish, plant ecologies, and children responding to a threat and then reframing the threat and opportunity of the greedy entity. They questioned their motives and the motives of the the greedy entity. Both were feeling threatened and or being threatening. Why? Courage and confidence are gifts we give ourselves, even if we don’t believe it or if it comes from a “magical” often inaccessible place.
If we do not empower and build heroes, we do not create a better, brighter future - for all.
