Sojourn of the Sylvan Fringe: Receptivity to Mystery and Curricular Ruminations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-4467.40845Keywords:
mystery, existential experience, hermeneutic phenomenology, sojourn, sylvan fringe, metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, physis, presence and absence, receptivity to mystery, curriculum theory, ontological curriculumAbstract
This retrospective of an extended inquiry into the phenomenon of mystery addresses three questions:
- What is mystery?, revealing through hermeneutic phenomenology an unknown flower within a forest resuscitating metaphysics as physis, a definition of mystery founded on secrecy and incomprehensibility, and a conception of mystery as the enigma of the counterplay between the ontological movements of presencing and absencing (Caputo, 1986; Heidegger, 1927/1962);
- Why distain toward mystery?, where, through a literature review, a typology of senses of mystery problematizes this distain and expands awareness towards mystery. Openness to mystery begins through awareness, which heightens the senses and emotions, kindling poetic knowledge, a foundational mode of being. Mystery also serves as a measure for our lives, through our consonant comportments and conceptions. The comportment of humility, among others, is highlighted as nurturing mystery; and
- How may receptivity toward mystery inform curriculum theory?, where the consideration of “what should be learned” (Petrina, 2004), supports a conception of education in which future generations recognize metaphysics as presence, while awakening to metaphysics as physis.
References
Abram, D. (1997). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world. Vintage.
Bigwood, C. (1993). Earth muse: Feminism, nature and art. Temple University Press.
Brown, C. S., & Toadvine, T. (2003). Eco-phenomenology: Back to the earth itself. State University of New York Press.
Caputo, J. D. (1986). The mystical element in Heidegger’s thought. Fordham University Press.
Cooper, D. E. (2002). The measure of things: Humanism, humility, and mystery. Oxford University Press.
Cooper, D. E. (2018). Senses of mystery: Engaging with nature and the meaning of life. Routledge.
Fernandes, M. T. (2021, February 23). Grey county adopts wording for land acknowledgement. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/grey-county-adopts-wording-for-land-acknowledgement/article_0565e232-61ff-55c4-87c1-b7b5f83f0b4a.html
Frye, N. (1980). Creation and recreation. University of Toronto Press.
Hanks, P. (Ed.) (1979). Nuance. In Collins dictionary of the English language.
Harrison, R. P. (1992). Forests: The shadow of civilization. Chicago University Press.
Harvey, S. R., Fleener, J., Karrow, D., & Yu, J. (2016, April 27-May 1). Fanning the flames of curriculum’s desire through complicated conversations with Martin Heidegger [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association (AERA), San Antonio, TX.
Harvey, S. R., & Karrow, D. (2016, April 8-12). Curi-awe-sity: Resituating wonder’s attributes in environmental education [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association (AERA), Washington, DC.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)
Heidegger, M. (1966). Discourse on thinking (J. M. Anderson & E. H. Freund, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published in 1959).
Heidegger, M. (1975). Poetry, language, and thought (A. Hofstadter, Trans.). Harper & Row.
Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology. In W. Lovitt (Ed.), The question concerning technology and other essays (pp. 3-35). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1954)
Heidegger, M. (1999). Contributions to philosophy (from enowning) (P. Emad & K. Maly, Trans.) Indiana University Press. (First published in 1989, from work written 1936-1938)
Heidegger, M. (2000). Introduction to metaphysics (G. Fried & R. Polt, Trans.). Yale University Press. (Original work published 1953)
Hodge, S. (2015). Heidegger and curriculum. In M. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory (pp. 986-990). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-588-4_139
Jardine, D. (1998). To dwell with a boundless heart. Peter Lang.
Jones, R. H. (2009). Curing the philosopher’s disease: Reinstating mystery in the heart of philosophy. University Press of America.
Karrow, D. (2010). Educating-within-place: Recovering from metaphysics as technicity. Lambert Academic Publishing.
Karrow, D., & Harvey, S. (2015, April 16-20). The value of mystery after its distain in education [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association (AERA), Chicago, IL.
Karrow, D., Harvey, S. R., & Yu, J. (2019). Critical theory’s nod to Heidegger: Contributions of phenomenological ontology to teacher education research. In K. Nolan & J. Tupper (Eds.), Beyond the technical rational: Drawing on social theory for teacher education research (pp. 243-262). Bloomsbury.
Karrow, D., & Harvey, S. R. (2023). Meditative thinking and the naturalist current of environmental education: Principles informing a philosophy of reclaiming mystery. In M. Etherington (Ed.), Environmental education: Interdisciplinary approaches to nature (pp. 206-217). Wipf & Stock.
Karrow, D., & Harvey, R. S. (forthcoming). An ethos of mystery for education theory and practice.
Kidd, I. J. (2012). Receptivity to mystery: Cultivation, loss and scientism. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 4(3), 51-68. https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v4i3.276
Marcel, G. (2001). The mystery of being (Vol. 2; G. S. Fraser, Trans.). St. Augustine’s Press.
Murdoch, I. (1997). Existentialists and mystics: Writings on philosophy and literature (P. Conradi, Ed.), Penguin.
Nicholson, G. (2019). Heidegger on truth: Its essence and its fate. University of Toronto Press.
Oxford English Dictionary. (2003). Mystery. In Oxford English dictionary. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/mystery_n1?tab=etymology#35210029
Peters, M. A. (2002). Heidegger, education and modernity. Rowman & Littlefield.
Petrina, S. (2004). The politics of curriculum and instructional design/theory/form: Critical problems, projects, units and modules. Interchange, 35(1), 81-126. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/B:INCH.0000039022.53130.d5
Schubert, W. H. (1986). Curriculum: Perspective, paradigm, and possibility. Macmillan.
Stubley, E. V. (2021). Philosophy as a method of inquiry. Visions of Research in Music Education, 16(8), 44-54. https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/vrme/vol16/iss3/8 (Original work published 1992)
Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Taylor, J. S. (1998). Poetic knowledge of education. State University of New York Press.
Verkamp, B. J. (1997). The senses of mystery. University of Scranton Press.
Verkamp, B. J. (2002). The sense of religious wonder: Epistemological variations. University of Scranton Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Douglas D. Karrow, Sharon R. Harvey
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright for work published in JCACS belongs to the authors. All work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
