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Aikido as Transformative
and Embodied Pedagogy

Teacher as Healer
Michael A. Gordon
Aikido as Transformative and Embodied Pedagogy
 Michael A. Gordon

Aikido
as Transformative
and Embodied
Pedagogy
Teacher as Healer
Michael A. Gordon
Simon Fraser University
Vancouver, BC, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-23952-7 ISBN 978-3-030-23953-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23953-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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 Foreword

How do we align with those deep currents that flow within and between
us? How, in an age of such stunning threat and conflict, do we hold the
spirit of mutual protection and preservation?
We are steeped in a worldview of distinct subject and object, a materi-
alist, positivist quest for absolute truth and control over the other: plant,
planet, and sometimes person. As both product of and perpetuator of
that worldview education centers on acquisition of external and largely
abstract knowledge and instrumental skills. These are worthwhile expec-
tations of schooling. The trouble—it is not hard to recognize—is that
this worldview (and this knowledge), for all its might and value, leaves us
distant from the earth, one another, and ourselves. From this detached
stance, the world is disenchanted, to use Max Weber’s term. And we end
up doing quite stunning violence to each of these realms.
Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci anticipated the conse-
quence of this, at the time, emerging view. He named it an abbreviators
approach. He saw that in missing the embeddedness, embodiment, and
interconnectedness of the thing we observe in favor of some abstract,
abbreviated representation of it or merely its immediate utility, we miss
the fullness and even enchantment of the thing itself. He made explicit
that taking this shell, thinking we have the nut, leaves us doing injury to
knowledge and to love.
Though we can now acknowledge the domination of this abbreviators
approach, we can also recognize a great shift in worldview that is well

v
vi    Foreword

underway, a shift toward a more interdependent, integrated, systemic,

and holistic view. This invites a profound recalibration of knower, know-
ing, and known.
This new and improved worldview may update the dominant one
and provide a more accurate and judicious guide to actions and ethics.
However, a worldview, in the end, is itself an abstraction. It is necessary,
but alone it is not sufficient to undo the damage to knowledge and to
love.
Our great ability to objectify and abstract has left us outside the world
and our bodies, searching for a way back in. Today we are not simply
looking for a description of life; we are hungry for an experience of being
alive. That experience comes from being embodied in the world here
and now. The question becomes how do we move toward not only an
upgraded worldview, but also to a world presence—a way of being and
knowing more congruent and integrated with this new view.
There is a long tradition from Plato to Augustine to Descartes and
beyond, of thinking ourselves as detached from the body, the body of
nature, and from one another. Our physical body has been perceived as a
container of suffering—the prison house of the soul for Plato; the throb-
bing source of moral failure as Augustine understood; and for Descartes,
a machine on which the head rides around. Though we have fascination
with some bodies, the body as source of knowing has largely been dis-
missed as illogical, subjectivity reserved for the artist, senses viewed as
untrustworthy, feeling seen as merely a byproduct of thought.
Although we are not even close to having it all mapped out, we have
been putting our parts back together. That is, mind and body, gut and
brain, hand and head, thought and feeling, self and world exist not sepa-
rate from one another, not even as connected as early mind-body medicine
understood, but as a complex, interactive unity within and between us.
What Michael Gordon does in this fascinating book is to describe a
practice of dynamic presence—a do, a way—that brings us back into the
world and our self in a profound way.
His approach, framed with rich scholarship both East and West, and
colored with his own vibrant lived experience, recognizes our knowing as
enacted—we call the other into being and are likewise called by the field
around us. As such, deep knowing is an emergent property of our meet-
ing the world. From research on empathy, interpersonal neurobiology,
and cross-cultural perspective, he maps our knowing as extended, beyond
our individual brain and mind. Further, this knowing is embedded in the
 Foreword    vii

world, touched by currents seen and unseen. Foremost, it is embodied,

full of all the felt sense, movement, feeling, images, thoughts, and spon-
taneous wise action that come from deeply inhabiting this form of ours.
Drawing especially from experience of Aikido, Shodo—the way of cal-
ligraphy, psychotherapy, education, and motorcycling, Michael Gordon
uncovers the underlying contemplative practice of skillful embodiment
and somatic-energetic attunement. This expanded, integrated way of
knowing sets that stage for an ethic and a telos that helps balance princi-
ples and practice, worldview and world presence. In so doing, this moves
past subject-object distinction toward intersubjectivity and then, the step
further, into an ecological perspective whose ethic emerges organically as
a commitment to collective well-being, to love.
This work is profoundly relevant for education and for life—for how
we meet the world. Beyond the conventional knowledge and skills of
education, it is the practice of self-cultivation toward psychospiritual
development that is the heart of this work and the potent offering for a
way of being.

Carrollton, Georgia, USA Tobin Hart Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology
University of West Georgia
 Preface

On Joyful Immersion
One of my earliest memories as a young boy is of learning to fly a kite.
Standing out on the windswept muddy flats of Vancouver’s Locarno
Beach, the tide exposing a seemingly unending expanse of wet sand out
into the harbor. Or perhaps it was the long grassy knoll rising above
the rocks leading up toward the cliffs around the University of British
Columbia and neighboring Wreck Beach. I felt the wind push and knock
me about as I struggled to keep my feet planted, my tiny hands wrapped
around the plastic spool of nylon string, the other end of which was con-
nected to a brightly colored diamond-shaped kite, flapping in the wind
like a restless bird set to take flight. Perhaps, an adult or parent was
holding the string along with me, arms wrapped around, coaching me
through the steps, or maybe holding the kite slightly aloft for takeoff.
‘Run!’ they said, releasing the kite. ‘Run, run, run! Let the string out
now!’ I felt the whoosh of air as ran headlong into the air current, the
kite struggling and pulling against the string, trying to tug it away from
my grip. And then suddenly, a feeling of ease, of lightness and giddy joy:
The kite was soaring upward, darting through the gusts of wind but sta-
bilizing and pulling skyward as I let out the string. It was exhilarating
to feel connected to that magical object, as if I too was flying toward
the sun like a bird, feeling the pulse through the string of the kite as it
danced above me, guiding and joining with it through the choreography
of my hand movement.

ix
x    Preface

Sense memories like this come flooding through as I let my body and
imagination revisit these early experiences. As a young child growing up
on the west coast of British Columbia, our family and that of my parents’
close friends co-rented a house in the summers on the Sunshine Coast,
a forested and rocky peninsula jutting northward a short ferry ride away
from the city, and which overlooked the Salish Sea toward Vancouver
Island. Now that I have bought a house on the same coast, I reflect
back on the countless hours I spent here mesmerized with the marine
life teeming in the tide pools along the rocky beaches. Countless more
were spent exploring the thick coastal forests with their majestic trees
and woodland creatures, tiny and large. The real and imagined world
I moved through intermingled through stories, drawings, and future
nature trips and, as a teenager, a developing passion for capturing this
sensuous beauty through photography.
Looking back, I can make a clear connection between my earliest
physical and emotional sensations connected to discovering my own
body sensations and movement, and that of the natural landscape and
life around me. This curiosity and intrigue would carry forward through
a plethora of physical activity: Skiing, racquet sports, soccer, hockey,
and baseball were part of my sporting and physical life, some of which
carry through to this day. Competitive team sports and their attendant
machismo tendencies, however, never really took root, despite the usual
boyhood fantasies about wartime heroism, battle courage, and myriad
other ‘combative’ or revenge scenarios. As I reflect back on these more
meaningful and authentic early kinesthetic experiences, two elements
stand out prominently. Firstly, that, as I just mentioned, competition was a
social or performative dynamic that did not ultimately resonate deeply. It
was the doing of the activity, the joyful immersion and call of natural curi-
osity and skill-enhancement that carried me through. Second is that the
mirroring of the rhythmic movement and energy of natural life around
me that did move me (i.e. observing, being in nature; solo, non-com-
petitive activities like swimming, cycling, climbing) have led to the most
lasting, meaningful, and ongoing interactive passions in my life. These
enduring activities fall into three broad autobiographical categories:
music, Aikido, and motorcycling. This book explores the latter two—
Aikido and motorcycling—as core practices in my life. I have deliberately
left music, acting and other creative pursuits aside in this study, as they
would likely comprise an entire other exploration. In place of the profes-
sional career and life path, I have pursued through singing, playing guitar
 Preface    xi

and piano, songwriting, and playing in musical groups since the age of
13, I have explored the kinesthetic, aesthetic, and rhythmic body move-
ment of music performance (i.e.) through the taking up—for the pur-
poses of this book—of another creative practice: Japanese calligraphy or
shodo. In essence, I wanted to ‘port’ my other lifelong practices (Aikido,
music, sports, photography) into something new, and specifically as an
exploration in the context of this study about self-cultivation—of practice
as a mirror of one’s spiritual development.
I bring up these early life memories to draw a line from my early psy-
cho-emotional and kinesthetic inclinations through to the present as a
way of getting at what Henry writes of as ‘life phenomenology’ (Henry
2008, 2015). Henry refers to the ‘auto-affectivity’ that inhabits and
informs our senses and connects us to the vital energy that suffuses life
all around us—in nature, and in our bodily, emotional and psychologi-
cal registers as we move through our world of experiences. Rather than
forming a phenomenological study per se, however, this book examines
the ways in which this universal and vital life energy (ki in Japanese)
infuses, animates, informs, and gives rise to self-cultivation and increased
relational awareness through conscious and concerted reflexive practice.
Overall, the various life experiences that form the ‘ground’ of this book
are drawn out across all aspects of living, with a particular emphasis on
interdependence and a specific emphasis on the practices of motorcycling,
Aikido, and shodo (Japanese calligraphy). While not everyone may take
up the practice of Aikido, shodo, or motorcycling, the virtue-ethic and
embodied approach to these practices as way is put forward here as an
orientation that offers more generalizable insights into teaching and
learning relationships that may become more fully conscious, human-
ized, and attuned aspirationally toward harmonious relationship-making.
This book evolved from my doctoral dissertation, titled ‘Practicing
Love: Embodied Attunement Through the Lens of Aikido,’ and which
was defended at Simon Fraser University in the fall of 2018. As a man-
uscript thesis it is comprised of essays which are self-contained, have
been presented at peer-reviewed conferences, and otherwise appear else-
where as peer-review publications in specified academic journals and
books. Collating these essays here as chapters from which they originally
appeared in thesis manuscript form invites a difficulty in linking them the-
matically, with the disadvantage that each piece cannot refer back to the
overall thesis in which they are placed. Thus, this opening piece serves
as an expanded and exploratory essay on the themes and concepts that
xii    Preface

unfold through the book pieces and form the shape of this book. Overall,
the essays here shape the thesis’ dominant theme of practice as self-trans-
formation, toward healing or wholeness. This relationship to practice
reflects strongly the classical East Asian philosophy, such as Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Daoism, and their view of education as self-cultiva-
tion, especially through contemplative practices. From this viewpoint,
education is ontological in nature, and spiritually speaking, cosmologically
situated. One’s beingness, hence the ontological, is inseparable from one’s
self-development toward an understanding of their place and practices
within-the-whole. Learning as self-cultivation, then, is a circular, cyclical,
and holistic integration of practice and self-reflection that both occurs
through and results from intersubjective and non-dual awareness.
The book itself is structured, and its constituent essays organized, to
model this cyclical and holistic framework of self-cultivation. This learning
cycle is grounded with the purpose of virtue ethics as self-cultivation at
heart and, as we shall see shortly, is thus teleological in nature. The book
is organized into three parts that reflect this cyclical or holistic structure.
Part I follows this introductory essay and takes ‘A Psychospiritual View of
Self-Cultivation.’ The idea here is that our unique, localized, idiosyncratic
conditions form the ‘ground’ of our being, our immediate outlook, psy-
cho-emotional conditioning, or in Buddhist terminology, our ‘dependent
origination.’ The first chapter examines pedagogy as fostering ‘wholeness’
or ‘healing’ by developing a more holistic, ‘ecological,’ or non-dual view-
point. Part II moves into practice of this non-dual viewpoint through ‘An
Intersubjective View of Knowing and Being.’ The two essays here look at
the phenomenological, psycho-emotional, and relational aspects of Aikido
and motorcycling, respectively, and how they inform intersubjective
awareness from a practice orientation of mind-body integration, which
itself approaches a non-dualistic experience and outlook. Lastly, Part III
forms ‘A Relational View of Practice’ by looking at how the embodied
attunement practice of Aikido can inform transformative and self-reflec-
tive learning through ‘embodied habitus’ (Inoue 2006) of non-dual rela-
tionality in broader relational and pedagogical settings. The following
sections of this introductory essay expand on these themes of self-reflec-
tive learning through practice, through autobiographical notes that situ-
ate my research, more detailed unfolding of the holistic methodology and
conceptual framework, and the thematic and theoretical perspectives in
which the book as a whole is framed.

Vancouver, Canada Michael A. Gordon Ph.D.

 Preface    xiii

References
Henry, M. (2008). Material phenomenology (S. Davidson, Trans.). New York:
Fordham University Press.
Henry, M. (2015). Incarnation: A philosophy of flesh (K. Hefty, Trans.). Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press.
Inoue, S. (2006). Embodied habitus. Theory, Culture and Society, 23(2–3),
229–231.
 Acknowledgements

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my partner Helena for her inex-

haustible support, insight, and resolve in helping me through my doc-
toral degree journey. I would also like to extend my deep appreciation
to my senior doctoral supervisor, friend, and colleague Dr. Heesoon
Bai, without whom my discovery of my deeper potential on this path
would not have been possible. Thank you, Heesoon, for your belief in
me and my work from the beginning, and the patience and determina-
tion in helping me see my vision through to completion. I would also
like to acknowledge my doctoral supervisor Dr. Stephen Smith for his
humor, continued commitment, and critical insights into my work as
we pushed it along toward being more meaningful, alive, and relevant. I
wish to also extend my gratitude to Dr. Avraham Cohen whom as both
colleague, friend, and fellow aikidoka, saw promise and potential in the
rich interweaving of the psychological, spiritual, and phenomenological
aspects of the interpersonal practices and values we have in common. I
also wish to thank Dr. Mark Fettes and Dr. Vicki Kelly for their personal
and academic friendship and guidance along the journey toward this dis-
sertation. I am acknowledging here two pivotal teachers in my life and
work: Kazuko Ikegawa Sensei, for guiding me on the path to discovery
in Japanese calligraphy; and Sensei Stephen Duffin for his continued sup-
port, friendship, and guidance through Aikido both on and off the mat.
My heartfelt appreciation also goes out to Dr. John P. (Jack) Miller and
Dr. Jing Lin for their gracious support and guidance, and their unflag-
ging contributions in promoting holistic and contemplative approaches to

xv
xvi    Acknowledgements

education. To Dr. Tobin Hart, I extend my deep gratitude for your men-
torship and friendship as a fellow traveler, scholar and human on the path
to creating a better world for all beings.
Lastly, to my parents, without whom I wouldn’t have come into this
world: For the difficult but transformative growth together along this
path of life, one which has allowed me to appreciate the best in each of
them and the opportunity to continue to discover the person I am.
 Contents

Part I A Psychospiritual View of Self-Cultivation

1 Introduction: Practice as Transformative Wholeness 3

2 Teacher as Healer: Animating the ‘Ecological Self’

Through Holistic, Engaged Pedagogy 57

Part II An Intersubjective View of Knowing and Being

3 Awakening to Wholeness: Aikido as an Embodied

Praxis of Intersubjectivity 89

4 Moto-Morphosis: The Gestalt of Aikido

and Psychotherapy, and Motorcycling as ‘Way’ 109

Part III A Relational View of Practice

5 The Way of the Classroom: Aikido as Transformative

and Embodied Pedagogy Through Self-Cultivation 139

xvii
xviii    Contents

6 Conclusion 163

Index 187
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Triangle, Circle, Square: Sangen. Brushwork, Zen

Master Sengai Gibon (1750–1837) Spiritual Roots
of Aikido 38

Illustration I.1 Sai Sei “reborn” 1

Illustration 2.1 Ai ‘harmony’ or ‘love’ 57
Illustration II.1 Ki, “universe; life force” 87
Illustration 3.1 Senshin, “purify heart-mind; reform one’s self” 91
Illustration 4.1 Shūchū, “concentration or focus” 125
Illustration III.1 Do, “way or path” 137
Illustration 5.1 Keiko, ‘training; practice; study’ 147
Illustration 5.2 Hara, ‘one point; centre’ 150
Illustration 6.1 Kokoro, “heart; mind” 163

xix
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 The eightfold path and its three divisions 40

Table 1.2 Ground, path, fruition (conditional view) 40
Table 1.3 Ground, path, fruition (unconditional view) 41
Table 1.4 Ground, path, fruition via Aikido and Gestalt Therapy 45
Table 1.5 The cycle is the whole: learning as ontology 46
Table 1.6 Layout of essays 47

xxi
 PART I

A Psychospiritual View
of Self-Cultivation

Illustration I.1 Sai Sei “reborn”

 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Practice as Transformative

Wholeness

I Did Not Die Today…

This book begins with a story about my own encounter with death. On
a hazy sun-drenched Summer evening in July 2010, I had a ‘brush with
mortality’—a phrase we shall see that has multiple meanings in this book.
I was making a short trip on my motorcycle to grab a bite to eat close-by
after an appointment in my hometown of Vancouver, BC. What hap-
pened in a flash, shortly after I donned my helmet and pulled on my pro-
tective gloves in familiar ritual, both froze and expanded my perception
of time and space and profoundly changed my life. I pulled away from
the curb in routine fashion and paused at a stop sign on a side street and,
seeing that the intersection to the major road was clear and the main
traffic light was red, I proceeded across the pedestrian-controlled traffic
light to make a left turn. Traffic flow was stopped in both directions at
the main red light. I looked in each direction, twice. What I couldn’t
have foreseen, despite all my normal and precautionary routines, was that
I was headed for a near-fatal collision with a car. As I moved across the
intersection, the pedestrian light still flashing a red hand to signal caution
in crossing, a driver approached downhill through the glare of the set-
ting summer sun to my left, seeing what I didn’t: a suddenly clear green
traffic signal. Already in motion, the driver now accelerated through the
green light. A tanker truck to my immediate left was fully stopped at the
intersection yet to proceed through the green light, air brakes applied,

© The Author(s) 2019 3

M. A. Gordon, Aikido as Transformative and Embodied Pedagogy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23953-4_1
4 M. A. GORDON

obscuring me from the oncoming car as I pulled forward past the truck’s
front bumper to make a left turn.
The oncoming car hit me broadside. The bike was hit with such
force that it was knocked out from beneath me, spinning and skittering
on its side axis into the middle of the opposite oncoming side traffic.
According to a witness, I was knocked head-down off my motorcycle,
straight into the pavement—mercifully landing after the car had pushed
through. While my head and neck made direct impact, I can only attest
to the fact that decades of martial arts training and break-falling in the
Japanese defensive art of Aikido had effectively saved my life, instinc-
tively putting me into a state of coordinated, relaxed body posture and
protective responsiveness. As the witness stated later: ‘I don’t know how
you survived that!’ As horrific as the accident was, I came out relatively
spared of physical injury—this considering I ended up hitting the pave-
ment helmet and hands first, my bike scattering across the road and
ultimately written-off as a mangled unrepairable loss by the insurance
company. In that life-threatening blink of an eye, years of quick reflexes
and martial arts training in Aikido proved its merit, protecting me from
significant shock, trauma, and, possibly, death.
This dramatic autobiographical event serves as the pretext of this
book, where I use the ‘brush with mortality’ to examine the psychos-
piritual, kinesthetic, and relational aspects of practice as it applies to daily
life. By this I suggest not just life and death situations (which a mar-
tial art such as Aikido suggests via ‘self-defence’), but rather to the sense
of being fully immersed in living. Aristotle laid the early foundation for
later phenomenological philosophy and study of ‘aliveness’ with the
Greek term aesthesis, which forms the root of his theory of aesthetics.
Jungian scholar James Hillman (1992, p. 60) is one of a succession of
modern philosophers from Nietzsche through Heidegger to revive the
Aristotelian idea of aesthesis (from Greek, meaning ‘sensation’), which
relates to the experience of aletheia (meaning ‘unconcealment’ or ‘dis-
closure’ of truth through phenomena). As educator Elliot Eisner points
out, ‘The opposite of aesthetic is anaesthetic!’ (as cited in Coghlan &
Brydon-Miller, 2014, p. 121). Thus, in terms of ontology, and prac-
tice, being alive is not simply a measure of being not dead but being
fully awakened. Speaking to this ‘aliveness,’ I take up the full kinesthetic
(e.g., embodied) aspects of my own practices toward connecting with
their generalizable and practical applications for full and joyful immer-
sion in life. In my self-study for this book, the focus on aesthesis or ‘alive
 1 INTRODUCTION: PRACTICE AS TRANSFORMATIVE WHOLENESS 5

awakeness’ takes place primarily through my lifelong study of ki-energy

(Japanese: ‘life energy, vitality, life force’) and mind-body coordination
through the dynamic art of Ki Aikido, as well as my purposefully adopted
practice of shodo (Japanese calligraphy). I go on to relate this core expe-
riential ‘way’ of ki-awareness or aesthesis to the other practices in my
personal and professional life: psychotherapy, motorcycling, and teach-
ing. Though I did not incur any lasting physical injury from my motor-
cycle accident, my ‘brush with death’ was emotionally, symbolically, and
spiritually shocking and awakening. I remain an avid motorcyclist, and
as a teacher and practitioner of the art of Aikido, I draw on this direct
encounter with death when asked if I have ever had to use Aikido in real
life.

The Teleology of ‘Way’ as Self-Cultivation

Yuasa (1993), in his theory of ki, examines self-cultivation from an
Eastern philosophical tradition, a position from which he advocates for
a more ‘subjectivist’ scientific research approach. In doing so, Yuasa is
highlighting—from the East Asian philosophical worldview—an explic-
itly teleological nature to knowing and being. By contrast, as Yuasa sug-
gests, one result of the objectivist scientific paradigm that ensued after
the so-called Cartesian dichotomy of mind/matter is that ‘[t]eleology
has been expelled from modern science’ (1993, p. 148). Yuasa specifi-
cally refers to teleology via the history of pre-modern biology and traces
pre-modern biology’s roots to Aristotle’s original notion of ‘final cause’
(telos), where ‘teleology states that all phenomena exist for a certain pur-
pose’ (1993, p. 175). By this, Yuasa suggests that teleology and causality
are mutually exclusive in modern science. In causality, for example, the
lungs have a certain function in human physiology that correlate to cir-
culation, breathing, and the autonomic nervous system. Conversely, as
Yuasa informs us, Aristotle was led to telos because he was indeed famil-
iar with biology and that ‘it is possible to view the character and struc-
ture of a living organism as formed to realize a definite purpose’ (1993,
p. 175). ‘For example,’ Yuasa states, ‘the lungs are a means for the pur-
pose of breathing’ (1993, p. 175). He also conjectures that Darwin pur-
portedly used Aristotle’s theory of teleology in initially forming his theory
of the evolution of life. While it may seem subtle or semantic, the dis-
tinction is vital in that teleology connects to human meaning-making in
a way that transcends the scientific rigidity of causal relationships. What
6 M. A. GORDON

Yuasa contends, then, is that the phenomena of ki, measurable as it

may be through experimental observation as, say, electromagnetic force
both within and outside the human body (cf. discussion of ki-therapist
in scientific study in the upcoming section), suggest a ‘third way’ that
is neither scientifically measurable nor immediately registered through
conscious perception. Yuasa ascribes this ‘third way’ as ‘invisible’ within
the dualistic Cartesian paradigm and, like Jung, assigns it to the ‘uncon-
scious.’ The reason I make this immediate foray into Yuasa’s ki theory so
early in this book is to situate this study in such a teleological, meaning,
and values-based subjective manner—that is, that the practice or ‘way’ of
Aikido through ki study in the context of my own ‘brush with mortal-
ity’ and the various other practices I bring into the discussion carry with
them pronounced teleological characteristics. Simply put, as a life prac-
tice, the experiential and relational aspects of ki development as self-cul-
tivation—put forward via my own Aikido experience and reflected upon
in other practices in this study—reflects a system of cyclical and recur-
sive learning that is intentional and grounded in meaning and virtue eth-
ics. More simply put, I approach my ‘brush with mortality’ as being a
potential source of understanding and growth or personal evolution, in
the same way Yuasa (1993) defines the teleological, wherein, ‘generally
speaking, that there is purpose means that the phenomenon has a defi-
nite meaning and value for the life of an individual organism’ (1993,
p. 175).
Part I of this book forms ‘A Psychospiritual View of Self-Cultivation,’
where the ‘ground’ or conditions of one’s experience and being inform
the approach to practice, and its fruition or aspirational purpose and
outcome. If we follow Yuasa’s teleological inclination toward subjective
meaning and value then, my near-death experience forms the empiri-
cal, experiential ‘ground’ in this study. What has this got to do with a
psychospiritual and even ontological view? When I disclosed the details
shortly after the accident to two acquaintances, they independently
arrived at the same conclusion: it was not yet my time to die. Each, on
different occasions, told me I was ‘meant to be here,’ that I was spared
for a purpose. The first of these affirmations was from a psychic who
suggested that I had ‘experienced my own death’—both physically and
metaphysically—and thus had walked away ‘reborn,’ my karma trans-
formed. I wept instantly, the gravity of what happened, the thought that
either recklessly or unconsciously I almost ‘ended’ myself, compressing
me with the full bearing of grief. And yet the affirming words of these
 1 INTRODUCTION: PRACTICE AS TRANSFORMATIVE WHOLENESS 7

two acquaintances—that I was not yet meant to leave this life—gave me

instantly sobering clarity: as horrifying, sudden and traumatic as this flash
with danger had been, I did not die today. Two critical questions, how-
ever, remained immediately unanswered and weave themselves through-
out the themes in this book. Firstly, what happened in this incident? What
can be learned from it in terms of skillful awareness and experience not
only from the understanding of causality, but toward meaning and pur-
posefulness. Secondly, what does it mean to fully live, to fully engage the
present without fear, withdrawal, or resignation? This question invokes a
saying from Japanese culture, one that also stems from the martial, sam-
urai ‘warriorship’ (Japanese: budo) antecedents of Aikido training: ichi go,
ichi go-e. Translated to English, this phrase means ‘one chance, one life;
one encounter.’ To begin to explore what happened in my accident from
the teleological viewpoint, as Yuasa suggests, then means going beyond
the simple correlative failures or causality—the momentary lapse of
judgment, riding skill, or impulse control, for example—that belies the
deeper forces at work that undermined my otherwise ingrained skillful
caution and attentiveness. A more meaning-rich and valuable reflection,
as we shall see, reveals the accident as a case of my being out of tune or
out-of-sync with myself that undergirded my failure of risk assessment in
leaving that stop sign with ‘stale’ red traffic lights on either side of me.
In this sense, the learning or ‘correction’ involved in the post-incident
analysis isn’t as simple as fine-tuning my motor skill or traffic judgment.
There were deeper layers that relate to the context of learning experien-
tially. I situate this contextual learning from the psychotherapeutic van-
tage point of Gestalt Therapy—that one’s experiential paradigm exists in
an ecological life-setting, a whole or gestalt.

Ontology as Gestalt
I introduce Gestalt Therapy to widen the view from the immediate
accident parameters (causality) of my accident to my overall ‘life ecol-
ogy,’ both inner and outer, and how conscious and unconscious syn-
chronization of such ‘inner/outer’ phenomena (namely, coordination
of mind-body-environment through ki-awareness) leads to my greater
reflection and integration of what happened. From this holistic, ecolog-
ical, or gestalt perspective, I contend that this study aligns with Yuasa’s
(teleological) discussion of Jung’s ‘synchronization’ (1993, p. 145), the
idea that life ruptures such as my accident can be viewed in terms of
8 M. A. GORDON

either being aligned or misaligned with the overarching meaning, value,

and purposiveness of one’s life. Yuasa (1993) uses the term synchroni-
zation to invoke Jung’s theory of synchronicity where one experiences
the phenomenon of ‘meaningful coincidences.’ Jung’s intent, Yuasa
reminds us, is not to focus on correlative causality, but on what coincides
in the outer environment, as it relates to one’s unconscious drives, goals,
or ‘shadow’ (Jung’s depth psychology term for the ‘hidden’ corners of
our psyche). In the following section, I further elaborate the practice of
Aikido, which, in this study, is meant to offer insight into the teleological
explanation for the experiential learning of cultivating one’s personal ki
in order to better harmonize with the ki of others, the natural and other-
than-human world, and universal ki. In less symbolic terms than Jung,
‘synchronicity’ in Aikido goes beyond ‘meaningful coincidence’ to actual
ontological and cosmological harmony. One might state this beyond
Yuasa’s ‘transpersonal synchronization’ (1993, p. 145) to ‘spiritual syn-
chronization’ or harmony. Aikido, after all, translates as ‘the way of har-
mony or of harmonizing ki.’
Earlier, I raised the question arising from my accident as to ‘what does
it mean to be fully alive?’ As a beginning student of the Japanese mar-
tial art of Aikido in my mid-twenties, I would ponder for years to come
upon a statement put forward by my teacher: ‘Aikido helps us overcome
not the fear of death but the fear of living.’ Fear of death I could relate
to. Even as a turbulent young man somewhat oblivious or impertinent
in the face of mortality, existential dread made sense. But what of the
fear of living? If my near-death experience prompted me that ‘it was not
yet my time to die,’ then how and who was I to be alive, and to what
purpose? In this sense, the aftermath of this near-fatal encounter was not
escaping death but facing the meaning of life, of my life, of being alive.
What is Aikido, and how did it play such a vital role in my surviv-
ing this encounter with death and reckoning with life? This is the central
question in the self-study that informs this book. Aikido is considered a
modern Japanese form of budo or ‘martial way’ realized by its founder
Morihei Ueshiba (‘O Sensei’ or ‘great teacher,’ December 14, 1883–
April 26, 1969). Known as the ‘art of peace’ within an ethos of ‘win-
ning without fighting,’ students train together in the dojo (practice hall
or ‘place of spiritual learning’) in mock attack scenarios—striking their
partners or attempting to take hold to control them. However, rather
than being reduced to a system of tactical self-defense—blocking or
counter-striking, as is commonly the case with ‘martial’ or combat
 1 INTRODUCTION: PRACTICE AS TRANSFORMATIVE WHOLENESS 9

arts—Aikido teaches practitioners to respond calmly to threat through

synchronous timing, circular, centrifugal-centripetal movement, and
carrying out a spirit of blending or harmonizing with attack. This lat-
ter point has traditionally been expressed in budo (e.g., samurai warri-
orship) as aiki. Ueshiba’s spiritual mission through Aikido, however,
was to infuse aiki (or ‘harmonizing’ with the opponent) with a wider
spiritual purpose of aiki as unifying peace—as love. This, he contended,
was the true meaning of budo expressed as the ‘loving protection of all
things.’ The Aikidoist (Japanese: aikidoka) is thus training to harmo-
nize or purify her or his inner aggression—this being rooted in a deeper
spiritual, ontological, and epistemological provisional fallacy of dualism
(self-other, spirit-matter)—outwardly manifested by moving with calm
control. Such an active, self-reflective, and relational practice enables par-
ticipants to maintain a manageable, safe, and ‘respectful’ distance (ma-
ai: Japanese) in a manner that results with the attacker having to escape
protectively or be gently but powerfully subdued until the defender can
make space and withdraw safely. Aikido is thus teleological in Yuasa’s
use of the term, as both a tactical and spiritual form of non-aggression
and nonviolence. It is imbued with an abiding tactful and philosophical
spirit of mutual protection and preservation. As we shall see, however,
the dynamics of flow, non-dissention, synchronization of movement
and response through relational practice in Aikido are not reduceable to
stimulus-response dynamics, applied kinesthetics, or biomechanics. Nor
can they be idealized as merely lofty aspirational or altruistic philosoph-
ical values. Rather, core to the spiritual mission of Aikido laid out by its
founder Ueshiba, is the principle of aiki. Ki is a Japanese word with mul-
tiple interpretations and applications. Broadly put, it refers to the vital
energy in all life, universal life force, spirit or the nature of a situation or
interaction. In the context of Aikido training, ki takes on singular impor-
tance as the self-cultivation of one’s inner mind-body coordination (flow
of ki), and the harmonization of one’s ki with that of any encounter and
relationship with the natural world. In the broadest and holistic scope,
relationship refers to the entire ecology of life, or Cosmos. We shall
explore the central importance of ki and Aikido training to the self-study
that undergirds this book shortly. Meanwhile, suffice to say that ki in the
context of Aikido is interchangeable with reference to life itself. More to
the point, ki and aiki in the context of self-cultivation and Yuasa’s ‘tele-
ological intentionality’ and ‘transpersonal synchronization’ represent the
life-sustaining movement toward wholeness. Further, as Ueshiba himself
10 M. A. GORDON

stated, harmonization through aiki also transcends mere non-combative

resolution. It is the path of love. Thus, in this study, the exploration of ki
is interchangeable and synonymous with the teleological notion of ‘love’
as harmony or synchronization of life energy itself.
Again, the personal narrative about my near-death experience forms a
centerpiece in this study not simply to analyze any tactical or skills-based
failure on my part—or even to psychoanalyze the deeper implications of
having faced death per se. Rather, the story is presented here as a source
of introspection, reflection, and, to borrow a term from action research,
a vivencia or ‘lived experience’ (Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014). What
I suggest is that with my accident, instead of simply escaping death, I
had been awoken to my contact with life. Where the accident reveals a
disconnection, a lack of presence and grounded awareness and atten-
tion within what was otherwise the acquired autonomic skill of riding
a motorcycle, it provides an inflection point for my own self-awareness
and self-cultivation. I contend here that my own learning from this dra-
matic, existential vivencia extends beyond my own personal survival
story, providing the basis for examining transpersonal awareness and
detecting disruption of Yuasa’s ‘transpersonal synchronization.’ In this
sense, this book follows in that line of questioning and reflection about
aesthesis as the opposite of anaesthesis, in what Maxine Greene refers to
as ‘wide-awakeness’ (Greene, 1977). This is to inquire reflexively, aes-
thetically, and psychoeducationally in the development of an individual
what it means to be fully awake to all aspects of living—of life. It is as
ecological as it is a metaphysical or transpersonal query. In my brush-
with-death, the post-traumatic affect that emerged was not delayed
shock—that again was buffered by years of Aikido training, which
teaches one to stay centered, grounded, and calm under threat, de-tun-
ing one’s conditioned or sensitized ‘set-point’ for panic response or reac-
tivity. Rather, what emerged days after the incident were the implications
of what had happened. What did this mean for my relationships—with
myself, my family, and my then lover lying beside me as I awoke in lay-
ers of sweat, dread, and guilt? My point here isn’t solely emotional or
spiritual awakening; rather it is more of how profoundly shocked I was
into relationality. By the latter, I am not simply referring to the impact
of my life-risking accident on my relationships, but rather how it awak-
ened me—violently, unpredictably—to the moment of temporal-spatial
reality. The ‘moment’ here signifies not only sudden and near-fatal col-
lision with another vehicle, or the ground, but the sharp contact with
the conditions of my life in all aspects. After all, near-death experiences
 1 INTRODUCTION: PRACTICE AS TRANSFORMATIVE WHOLENESS 11

commonly lead people to reconsider their position in life. In view of

these considerations, I saw, and here reflect on, the journey forward out
of this accident as a path of healing. Again, ‘healing’ here goes beyond
my own psychophysical injuries, to the impact on my life ecology, and
my own cohesion, interactivity, and synchronicity with life. As I make
evident in the first essay Teacher as Healer: Animating the ‘Ecological Self
Through Holistic, Engaged Pedagogy to follow within Part I of the book,
the phrase ‘to heal’ is after all etymologically interchangeable with that of
‘to make whole’ (i.e., the Proto-Germanic ‘hailjan’ or Old English hale).
To heal is to move toward repair or wholeness. In the concluding
essay of this book, ‘The Way of the Classroom’ in Part III, I refer to
the idea of Buddhist ethos working with one’s painful experiences, rela-
tional struggles, and otherwise disruptive psycho-emotional patterns or
conditioning as transmutation. Indeed, in Buddhist practice, this gentle
but vigorous attention to one’s mental or emotional ‘afflictions’ through
calm abiding or ‘loving-kindness’ and compassion (e.g., through medi-
tation) is itself the source of happiness. In other words, there is a sense
of ‘stick-with-it-ness’ to one’s practice as a form of developing and culti-
vating self-compassion that stands in contrast to any drive toward exter-
nal achievement. Reaching beyond self-healing or self-compassion, the
higher ideal in Buddhism is directed toward the spiritual aim of lessening
the suffering of all beings, this being expressed through an ontological
worldview of non-dualism as ‘interpenetration’ or ‘interdependence.’
From a more Western psychological perspective, Positive Psychology
(Seligman, 2002) posits that happiness and mental well-being is not sim-
ply the process of an accounting of (a) one’s pleasurable experiences; (b)
one’s engagement; but rather: (c) the fruition of one’s life as defined
by its purposiveness. The latter is framed in the Aristotelian concept of
Eudaimonia, which is usually translated as happiness. Eudaimonia in
Aristotle’s virtue ethics however connotes a greater sense of well-being,
full purposeful human flourishing in context with phronesis or ‘practical
wisdom.’ Here again, purposiveness suggests a teleological approach to
self-cultivation.

Love as a Practice
To review so far, we have looked at how this book begins in Part I with
a psychospiritual view of (my) sample situation as ‘ground.’ We then
step back with a wider perspective in Part II to look at how an inter-
subjective view of knowing and being—from a virtue ethics, aspirational
12 M. A. GORDON

standpoint within this gestalt view—unfolds teleologically. The under-

lying theme of this book is the purposiveness of teaching and learning
as bringing to fruition purposiveness or well-being. From a virtue ethics
standpoint, this is the stated aim of any healthy relationship or commu-
nity—to aid in the well-being of others, or in the soteriological phrasing
of Buddhism to ‘lessen the suffering of other beings.’ Love, then, in an
altruistic sense, guides this teleology. In this book, I explore the virtue
ethics underlying Aikido (variously translated from Japanese as ‘the way
of harmony or peace’), namely that of budo, or ‘the way of warriorship.’
For Ueshiba, budo transcended the notion of mere combat warriorship
to encompass spiritual warriorship as ‘the loving protection of all beings’
(Ueshiba, 1985, pp. 179–180). As Erich Fromm emphasized, love is not
an entitlement; it is a practice, a skill (Fromm, 1956). Fromm conceptu-
alizes love in a platonic sense (e.g., agape or ‘higher love’), as opposed
to romantic love. This kind of transpersonal, universal, expansive, vir-
tue-based, and embodied notion of learning and practicing love is both
the spiritual and pedagogical underpinning of Aikido. Indeed, at the core
of Buddhist teaching, as we shall see, is the continued practice of self-
examination and self-cultivation toward moral virtue (i.e., loving-kind-
ness, compassion) expressed as ‘selflessness.’ Selflessness, ‘egolessness,’ and
no-self here reflect the psychospiritual practice of deconstructing the illusion
of a materially substantive and individualized fixed ego-self, rather than
negation of self. This selflessness does not signify ‘nothingness.’ Rather,
it allows one, through the fruition of continuous contemplative practice
and self-study, to break free of the concept of an individualized ‘self’ to
an experience of living through interconnectedness. In Essays 3 and 4
of the book, I explore the East Asian philosophy of (social) self which
is rooted in an intersubjective, non-dualistic view of self-cultivation and
knowing and being through a process of mind-body integration. As
a ‘way’ or practice emblematic of this non-dual East Asian philosophy
of knowing and being Aikido, as Ueshiba (1985) stated above, denotes
spiritual rather than martial training. The spiritual transformation real-
ized through training then is rooted in a twofold purposefulness or tel-
eology. First is the task of integrating one’s own mind and body (e.g.,
harmonizing one’s personal ki), which then secondly is experienced
through realizing non-resistance in character and action through rela-
tional practice (e.g., harmonizing one’s personal ki with the ki of others,
of the Universe).
Another random document with
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them from my observer, who was an old hand at the game. I
confess to a feeling of relief when I reached the point where
our bombs were to be thrown over. Having discharged this
duty I was glad to return to my starting-point with the motor
running at slow speed, and knowing that I was soon to be out
of range of the enemy’s deadly fire.
“In this bombardment my machine was made almost
entirely of steel tubing with a 140-horse-power engine,
capable of carrying a load of bombs weighing from four to
seven hundred pounds. As an arm of defense it carried a
machine gun. This is the type of machine that has made most
of the long raids on the enemy. I soon became accustomed to
the duty I had to perform and to flying with the spectacle of
shells bursting all around me, at the same time keeping on
the lookout for the ’planes of the enemy. We made seventeen
bombardments during the ensuing month of June and we got
to be old hands at this kind of warfare. It is never quite
agreeable to be shelled up in the air or elsewhere, and those
who make the boast of liking it do not tell the exact truth.
“To illustrate how well the French military aviation service is
organized and supplied with machines, let me tell you of my
experience at the front in Lorraine, where one day I had the
misfortune to break one of the wings of my machine. Instead
of stopping to have it repaired, all I had to do was to turn it
into a supply station near by where it was at once dismantled
and sent to the rear. I was then promptly supplied with a new
machine. A change of aeroplanes by an aviator in action in
France is like a cavalryman changing his horse. If there is
anything the matter with the animal, even if it is only a corn, a
new one is at once forthcoming. There is no suggestion of
parsimony or niggardliness in giving out the supplies
necessary for efficient fighting.
“On another occasion, when we were making a raid on the
railway station at Douai, which was about twenty-five
kilometres within the enemy’s lines, we started with a
squadron of some twenty machines. There happened to be
that day a great many German machines out. Somehow or
other they knew we were coming. We had four or five brisk
engagements with them. Our planes had only machine guns
with which to defend themselves, while the Germans used
regular fighting machines. This aerial engagement resulted in
four of our machines coming back riddled with bullets, my
lieutenant being hit in the leg.
“I was fortunate enough that day to escape the range of the
German flying machines by going farther north and passing
through the clouds, though I was shelled from a long distance
all the way. I succeeded in dropping my bombs on a railroad
station, one of which I saw explode in a bunch of freight cars
in the railroad yard. As I was returning within our lines the
Englishmen, by mistake, opened a brisk fire on me which
necessitated my going up into the clouds again. I proceeded
due west until I ran out of gasoline and I then descended in
the dark near the headquarters of the English. It was my good
fortune to land safely and on my arrival at my post I was
brought before the English commander, who asked me to tell
my story. Mine being one of the four machines out of twenty
that had reached Douai in the raid, I was awarded a citation
and given the right to wear a War Cross—my first decoration.
“My squadron spent a month in the east and during this
time I went farther into the enemy’s territory than I had been
before. I think the longest distance was when we made the
raid on two localities over one hundred kilometres within the
enemy’s lines in Bocherie, as we called it. During this month
General Joffre came to review our four squadrons of
bombarding machines. With him came the President of
France and the King of the Belgians. These distinguished
visitors witnessed the departure of a squadron of some ninety
of our machines on a bombarding raid loaded with bombs and
flying four abreast. They were highly complimentary in their
salutations to us Americans.
“During this month in Lorraine I experienced the hardest
knock I had received up to that time. One day six German
machines, fully equipped, bombarded Nancy and our aviation
field. To retaliate, my squadron was sent out to bombard their
field on the same afternoon. We started with thirty machines
to a designated rendezvous and fifty minutes later, after
getting grouped, we proceeded to our ultimate destination. I
had a very fast machine, and reached the German flying field
without being hit. When about to let go my bombs and while
my observer was aiming at the hangars of the Germans my
machine was attacked by them—one on the left and two on
the right. I shouted to my observer to drop his bombs, which
he did, and we immediately straightened out for home. While I
was on the bank the Germans opened fire on me with their
machine guns which were even more perilous than their
shells. My motor stopped a few moments afterwards. It had
given out and to make matters worse a fourth German
machine came directly at us in front. My observer, who was
an excellent shot, let go at him with the result that when last
seen this German aeroplane was about four hundred feet
below and quite beyond control. The other Germans behind
kept bothering us. If they had possessed ordinary courage,
they might have got us. Flying without any motive power
compelled me to stand my machine on end to keep ahead of
them. As we were nearing the French lines these Germans
left us, but immediately batteries from another direction
opened fire on us. As I was barely moving I made an
excellent target. One shell burst near enough to put shrapnel
in my machine. It is marvelous how hard we can be hit by
shrapnel and have no vital part of our equipment injured. I
knew I was now over the French lines, which I must have
crossed at a height of about four hundred metres. I finally
landed in a field covered with white crosses marking the
graves of the French and German soldiers who had fallen the
previous September at this point. This was the battle the
Kaiser himself came to witness, expecting to spend that night
in Nancy.
“Thousands fell that day, but the Kaiser did not make his
triumphal entry. Looking back on this latter experience of mine
I think myself most fortunate in having been able to return to
the French lines without a scratch. I got home safely because
the German aviators lacked either courage or skill or both.
They had me with my engine dead, four against one, and
twenty kilometres within their lines.”
 Portrait as exhibited at Allied Fairs

Alluding to the occasion of the telling of this story, William Roscoe

Thayer, who presided at the dinner, said when the tidings of
Norman’s death came from France: “I shall never forget that
Christmas night at the Tavern Club when Norman sat next to me and
told me many details of his service and then arose and gave that
wonderfully simple, impressive story. To have had such a service
and to die fighting for the cause which means the defense of
civilization—what nobler career could he have had? I can think of no
one who more thoroughly enjoyed the life of continuous peril which
he led. The honors which it brought him showed that France
recognized as heroism that which he took as a matter of course.”
 III
LETTERS

The following letters of Norman Prince, although chiefly of an

intimate and personal character, are here published as a part of the
record of his experiences in the service of France and as further
testimony to his tenderly affectionate nature and his constant
thoughtfulness and solicitude for those he left at home.
 With his Superior Officer Lieutenant de Laage de Mœux

Havre, Jan. le 29, 1915.

Dear Mamma,—I have just put foot ashore in France after a
disagreeable crossing, 2nd class. Here in Havre there are
troops and troops always passing. French troops, chiefly of
the reserve; thousands of English troops in khaki, Belgian
troops without uniform. They all say, not at all in a boastful
way, that they will be back home again by the end of the year.
Will they?
Dear Mamma, I hope you are well and that papa has not
taken too much at heart my leaving home at this time. I
believe I can find a place to do some efficient and useful work
for the cause to which I am so deeply devoted. My love to you
all. I shall write often.
Affectionately your son,
Norman.

Esc N. 124, Secteur 24, May 15, 1915.

Dear Governor,—Arrived en escadrille par la voie des airs
to replace a disabled pilot until the Escadrille Américaine is
formed.
I saw the battle lines and heard for the first time the never-
ending boom of guns. This is war in dead earnest and right at
hand. Will write more fully later.
Affectionately,
Norman.

V. B. 108-B. 103, May 20, 1915.

Dear Freddy,—Arrived here at the Front last Tuesday
piloting two Voisins appareils de bombardement. On the way
we bombarded observation balloons, railway centers,
poudrières, aviation camps and other locations of Boche
activity—but not towns or cities or other localities where the
lives of helpless women and children might be endangered.
We are in the section where all the French advances have
lately been made. The vertical guns of the Boches are
particularly annoying to us. They have got two out of six of the
pilots of our Escadrille since our arrival. One got down within
our own lines; the other fell within the lines of the Boches—
whether he was killed or not we do not know.
(Eight miles from the German trenches.)
Been here a week and have become quite accustomed to
being shot at. We go out every day and the salutations we get
from the Boches are rapid and continuous when we are over
their lines. The Boches here have more vertical guns to aim at
us—more to the mile of front than anywhere else. There are
hundreds of French aeroplanes grouped here because it is in
the twenty miles north of Arras and south of the English
where all the recent French advances have taken place.
Attacks and counter attacks by day and night, and the bang of
artillery in the near distance never ceases. We often go out at
the same time as the infantry attack behind the artillery fire,
the artillery of both sides banging away at the trenches,
batteries and at us,—the avions in the air. It is a wonderful
spectacle and something frightful as well—until we get used
to it!
N. P.

Paris, September 6, 1915.

My dear Grandmamma,—I am in Paris on a few days’ leave
and just had luncheon with a friend who is leaving to-night for
Rome and I have asked him to mail this letter to you on his
arrival.
 For the last four months I have been at the front—two
months in the North near Arras during the attacks of May and
June. After that we were stationed for a month near Nancy in
the East. Now we have returned to the north again where
there is increasing activity. I am happy and in the best of
health. I sleep under canvas on a stretcher bed and eat in the
shed of an old farm house near by. I have nothing to complain
of. I like it. There are ten American pilots with us in the French
service and twelve others in training with their number
constantly increasing. Some day soon we will all be united in
one escadrille—an Escadrille Américaine—that is my fondest
ambition. I am devoting all my spare energies to organizing it
and all the American pilots here are giving me every
encouragement and assistance in the work of preliminary
organization. As I have had so much to do in originating and
pushing the plan along, perhaps I shall be second in
command.
I would enjoy tremendously a letter. My address now is
Sergeant-Pilote Prince
Escadrille d’Avions Canon
3me Groupe de Bombardement
Secteur Postal 102.
I hope you are in Rome, not in Treviso, which must be dans
la Zone des Armées.
Your affectionate grandson,
Norman.
 Application to ride a Breguet de Chasse

Cⁱᵉ Gˡᵉ Transatlantique, À bord, January 4, 1916.

 My dear Mamma,—Just a line before the pilot leaves us to
tell you that Freddy and I appreciate your sorrow in having
your two boys go to the war. However, the greater the sorrow,
the greater the joy will be when they return!
Nothing was forgotten. Freddy and I have the same
stateroom and I shall immediately start to make him fit. I tell
him that in order to join the Flying Corps, one cannot weigh
more than 75 kilos.
Your most affectionate son,
Norman.

G. D. E. Div. Nieuport Secteur 92A, February 19, 1916.

Dear Governor,—Enclosed is a letter from Freddy. Notice
that he says the discipline at Pau is very strict.
I am a schoolboy again. I am training to fly the very fastest
appareil de chasse—quite a different instrument from the
avion canon which weighs three times more than these small
chasing appareils.
I am busy pushing matters, in regard to the formation of the
Escadrille Américaine. There is a possibility that St.-Saveur,
now a captain in the aviation, may command us. Although but
a short time on the front he has done finely as a pilot. We are
all disponible to go to the front and are only waiting for a
captain, the personnel—(chauffeurs, secretary, cook, etc.) our
avions and the motor cars. Orders for our formation will be
issued, I hope, next week. The weather has been very rainy
and windy here for a week, which is to be expected, during
the month of February. We are losing no time, however.
Those Lewis guns, if there is any way of getting hold of a
dozen, would be much appreciated by us here. The more you
can get for us the better, but I realize that it may be
impossible even for you to get hold of any.
How are the horses? Don’t overdo the schooling!
I hope you and Mamma are enjoying Aiken. The main thing
is to care for your health.
With love to Mamma, who, I trust, is not too anxious about
Freddy and me.
Your affectionate son,
Norman.

Esc. N. 124. Secteur 24, June 26, 1916.

Dear Mamma,—Oliver Wolcott, who has been cantoned
near by with the American Ambulance, is going home to serve
with the militia and is to take this letter with him.
No news of Freddy this past week. The training is so
thorough at these aviation schools that he risks but little while
there. Probably he won’t get to the front for another month.
Poor Victor Chapman! He had been missing for a week and
we knew there was only a very remote chance that he was a
prisoner. He was of tremendous assistance to me in getting
together the Escadrille. His heart was in it to make ours as
good as any on the front. Victor was as brave as a lion and
sometimes he was almost too courageous,—attacking
German machines whenever and wherever he saw them,
regardless of the chances against him. I have written to Mr.
Chapman—a rather difficult letter to write to a heart-broken
father. Victor was killed while attacking an aeroplane that was
coming against Lufberry and me. Another unaccounted for
German came up and brought Victor down while he was
endeavoring to protect us. A glorious death—face à l’ennemi
and for a great cause and to save a friend!
 Your affectionate son,
Norman.

Escadrille N. 124, Secteur 24, June 29, 1916.

Dear Mamma,—Enclosed is a photograph of Victor
Chapman and myself, taken two days before his death. It is a
print of what is probably the last photograph taken of him. I
have sent one to Mr. Chapman.
We are too busy and short of pilots at our Escadrille to think
of taking a permission at present. Tout va bien. Bonnes
nouvelles de Freddy.
Your affectionate son,
Norman.

July 2, 1916.
Dear Mamma,—A few lines to tell you that tout va bien.
This letter will be taken over and mailed in New York by an
American Ambulance driver who dined with us last night.
To-day I am de garde all the morning—that is to say, from
dawn to noon. I must be by my avion ready to start as soon
as any Boches are signaled. None have been so far this
morning—worse luck!
Your affectionate son,
Norman.
Esc. 124, Secteur 24.
 Esc. N. 124, Secteur 24, July 6, 1916.
Dear Governor,—Enclosed is a letter which speaks of
Freddy. The Escadrille is running well. St.-Saveur lunched at
our popole last week and wished to be remembered to you
and Mamma; de R⸺, who was on our team at Bagatille,
was here for lunch to-day with R⸺; both wish to be
remembered; de P⸺ came last week looking very fit and
will write to you shortly.
The aviaphone for my helmet arrived in good shape and I
have lent it to my captain, as I am riding at present a single-
seated aeroplane.
Your affectionate son,
Norman.
 Memorandum of the bringing-down of his first German machine

Deauville, Sept. 2, 1916.

Dear Mamma,—I am down here with friends, passing part
of my permission. It is very pleasant and refreshing, the
change. One soon gets enough of Paris in summer and in
wartime. Here no one pays the slightest attention to the war.
There are few militaires—mostly civiles from Paris and their
amies. Good bathing,—golf in the afternoon—many good-
lookers, making the plage rather good fun.
Freddy is nearly through at Pau. He is now at the acrobacy
school learning to do stunts in the air. It is a part of the
training of a chasse pilot. I gave him some pointers before he
left and told him to do the least possible with the old machines
which are quite out of date and clumsy.
Monday I return to Paris and Tuesday back to the Front, my
eight days permission expiring on that day.
I was fortunate enough to run across a German the other
day who didn’t see me approaching. If you read the
communiqué aérien of the 23d or 24th you will find mention of
my Boche,—“un avion désemparé est tombé dans la forêt de
Spencourt.” Undoubtedly they will give me this time the
Médaille Militaire,—the chicest decoration in France. The
chief pleasure of having it will be the satisfaction of having
earned it many times and that my receiving it may please the
governor and you.
A bientôt, dear Mamma. Thanks for the socks and the
handkerchiefs.
Most affectionately,
Norman.

Escadrille Américaine, par Luxeuil-les-Bains,

Haute-Saône, September 24, 1916.
Dear little Mamma,—I am so afraid you will worry more
than ever when you hear of poor Kiffen Rockwell’s death. I
know how anxious you must be with the two of us over here.
Keep very busy, ride a lot, go out to dinners and get as many
other distractions as possible so that you will not have too
much time to think of us. As far as danger to us goes, we are
trying to take as few chances as possibly consistent with
playing the game.
Everybody tells me that Freddy is showing himself to be an
excellent pilot. Unfortunately he has not yet fully decided to
come with our Escadrille. He would prefer to go to another
which is commanded by St.-Saveur. I dare say he might be
happier if he did not come with us, but à point de vue of safety
it seems to me he would be better off with us. I could be a lot
of assistance to him, telling him all I have learned this spring
hunting Germans, and he would have an excellent mechanic
in Michel, who by the way, has been Rockwell’s mechanic
while waiting for Freddy’s arrival; and further, he could have
my machine to ride, which is the dernier cri in appareils de
chasse, with two machine guns. He would otherwise get one
as safe, but not so good for knocking down Boches. He would
have only one gun.
Did I write you that I had knocked down another Boche two
days before leaving the Verdun district? I enclose a clipping
giving the communiqué officiel, with mention also of my
Boche who fell at Dieppe.
Dear Mamma, I must stop writing now. We are going out to
try to avenge Rockwell. Don’t worry! I am doing my duty as
safely as I know how. With much love to you both,
Most affectionately,
Norman.

To his Mécanicien
Cher Michel,—En cas qu’un accident m’arrive—c’est à dire
que je suis tué, blessé ou que je reste chez les Boches—je
vous prie d’écrire quelques lignes à ces dames, les adresses
desquelles sont écrites sur les enveloppes (ci-incluses).
 Dis leur que je t’avais dis d’écrire préférant qu’elles sachent
ce qu’il m’est arrivé plutôt que de rester dans l’angoisse au
sujet de mon sort.
Signe ton nom en mettant que tu avais été mon mécanicien
dévoué depuis mon arrivée sur le front.
Mes effets, papiers, lettres, etc., le tout, il faut mettre de
suite dans mes valises et les remettre personnellement à mon
frère.
Ci-inclus deux chèques comme cadeau en récompense du
boullot que vous et André ont fait si soigneusement sur les
appareils de Bibi et qui m’ont permis à gagner la Médaille
Militaire.
Ces chèques sont payables, à ma mort ou dans le cas que
je reste chez les Boches, à défaut de ce que cela m’arrive—
(espérons-le) à la démobilisation de vous deux.
En cas qu’un de vous devient civil avant l’autre, celui
devenu civil prends son chèque et le présente à la Banque—
où il sera payé.
Bonne poignée de main!
Norman Prince.
Esc. N 124, par Luxeuil-les-Bains, le 6 Septembre, 1916.

From his Mécanicien

Secteur 16, le 25 Octobre, 1916.
Monsieur et Madame Prince:—
Excusez-moi si je suis un peu en retard pour vous donner
quelques détails sur le malheur qui nous frappe en la perte de
Monsieur Norman.
 Il m’avait laissé, juste huit jours avant sa chute fatale,
quelques enveloppes avec adresses écrites par sa main pour
que je vous écrive quelques mots ainsi qu’à quelques amis si
quelque chose lui arrivait. Je vous joins du reste la lettre qui
est un véritable souvenir.
Pauvre Monsieur Norman, les boches n’ont pas pu avoir
raison de lui et n’ont pas eu ce plaisir là.
Il a trouvé la mort après tant de combats affrontés, tant de
dangers, et il en est sorti avec les honneurs à son avantage.
Son dernier départ a été le 12 Octobre, avec son avion de
chasse Nieuport monté avec deux mitrailleuses et avec lequel
il avait abattu un boche le 10, deux jours avant: il est parti à 2
heures faire la protection d’un groupe d’avions de
bombardement très en avant dans les lignes ennemies. Il a
abattu un avion de chasse ennemi à 3 hrs. qui venait attaquer
le groupe et lui barrer la route. Comme toujours, faisant son
devoir avec conscience, il a attendu que tous les avions ont
repassé les lignes avant de rentrer lui-même et à la dernière
minute il pense à atterrir dans le champ d’aviation le plus près
vu que la nuit commençait à tomber.
Il était prêt à faire un atterrissage des plus normal, malgré
l’obscurité, quand le malheur a voulu qu’il touche un cable qui
était au bordure du champ, et dont il ne pouvait soupçonner la
présence et son avion est venu s’écraser sur le sol.
Il a été relevé et aussitôt transporté dans un Hôpital sans
une plainte et sans perdre un instant ses sens, causant avec
un de ses camarades d’escadrille.
Il avait deux jambes fracturées, la droite à la cuisse et la
gauche au-dessus la cheville. Il a été opéré aussitôt, non
sans recommander aux docteurs de bien s’assurer de ne pas
faire une jambe plus courte l’une que l’autre, car il faisait
beaucoup de sport.
On lui a arrangé ses deux jambes et tout était fini à minuit.