in gratitude, day one: the good stuff

A year ago I did thirty days of gratitude. At that time I chose to do so because looking for things to be grateful for is a very effective way to first of all get your mind away from things that you don't want to pay more attention to (and that you'd just-as-soon left your consciousness/world altogether), and secondly intentionally watching for the Goodness is a lovely way to spend a bit of time each day.

It's that time again, I think.

Today, however, I don't choose the path because I find something wrong with my life... it's more like an extra bit of goodness to accompany my thoughts and ponderings and recognition of Beauty. Sort of like a surfeit of Goodliness, if you see what I mean.

So.
I begin my thirty days...
Thirty days of recognizing abundance. Thirty days of acknowledging prosperity. Thirty days of capturing a fleeting moment in my hand or in my heart or with my camera or holding it fast to my spirit.

Today, it's this.
This speaks to me because it suits my mood and my feelings of my home.
Warmth, which I certainly value on a cold winter's night.
Pretty, bright little lights around my picture window. They're sparkly, like magic.
The down of my couch.
The quiet hum of my notebook.
The snuggly blanket next to me (that I'll surely be wrapping up in any minute, now).
It speaks of settling into, and warmth, and cookies, and quiet play and snuggles and long stories.
It represents, to me, my home, in this minute, and my life, in this minute, and my Self, in this minute...
and I can be very, very thankful for This, in this minute.
It is Enough.

New Year's Revolution

Mmmmm, [she sighs in deliciousness, as she is very happy with this year's word] my third year for a one-word resolution.


In 2007, my word for 2008 was Intention.
A powerful word. A constant reminder to be conscious of all workings and thoughts. A steady awareness of what I was creating. A helpful and worthy course, certainly.

This last year my chosen (felt) word was Still.
Again, an intrinsic word... something that came from deep inside. Being in the Still meant coming from the stillness, the authentic center... not only coming from, but being aware of what Spirit seeks and being willing to go to and come from that place as often as possible.
Serving and Being and Doing the most valuable parts of my Self.

Interestingly, as I ponder my word today, I think about how similar and serious those two words are.

Last night we celebrated with friends. And it was a very, very fine celebration. At dark we packed up the children and soups and thermoses of hot chocolate (and beer and whiskey to keep the chill off the Mama's and Daddy's :) ) and sleds and hats and extra mittens and we headed to our -collective- neighborhood park for some nighttime snow play.
We had shouts and tossing snow and a lovely, bright, terrifically warm fire. What a fine time we had! A perfect way to do it, we all decided, I think.

My girlfriend Aubrey had mentioned that she wanted to burn some things that she wanted to rid herself of before she greeted 2010.
So I tossed in a notepad and a pen into the bag of mittens.

As we sat around the fire, and talked - as we often do - and Aubrey started shedding her Unwanteds, I considered the things I wanted to be free of. It didn't feel True to start listing things that I consider obvious or what I might even call trite (anger, debt, extra pounds, etc.) so I considered what I truly wanted to be free from.

Doubt.
Doubt. I want to be free from doubt. I know the rules. I have the tools and information to create for myself all of the things that I desire and require. Truly, I only need to practice more "thinking from the end", as I said last night to my friends, and letting in the Knowing.

So, following this most satisfactory observation, last night, I of course considered that my word should or could have something to do with this conviction or knowing.
Of course, when pondering things you long to Create in you life, 'tis always best to focus on something you're for, as to opposed, as natural laws show us that Creating is always about what your focus is - so you'd better make sure you're focused on the good stuff, if that's what you desire to create.

So. Trust?
I did consider it. The problem was that though Trust seemed pretty fitting (particular to an unschooling Mama) it also seemed a little trite.
I didn't consider it at the time, but now I also see it as following along with the other two serious ones from the last two years. Trust didn't quite do it for me. It would be challenging, and no doubt I would learn something along the way, but it wasn't where I want to go.

I considered Joy.
Joy was good, because it is something that is a big consideration and part of my life. Not foreign, certainly.
And while it didn't quite reach me at the proper level, it did get me thinking in the right direction.
Expansive, I thought.
Expansive is good.
Expansive is ... well, expansive.
Expansiveness is Big, and Joyful, and Me, and Soulful, and Beautiful.
Which leads me to...

Beauty.
Aah, Beauty.
Beauty is good.
Beauty is about appreciating my home.
Beauty is about finding joy in a basket of neatly folded laundry.
Beauty can be easily appreciated in clean carpets, sunshine streaming in, candlelight glow, a pretty picture, and a clean pillow.
Beauty is certainly contained in my life with my children. And looking for it in my everyday moments and interactions with them can only be a very expansive and Good thing. Watching them without judgment or fear, and stopping to appreciate their thoughts or processes - and looking for and appreciating the beauty - it seems very Big.
Bringing, finding, and being beauty in my other relationships can certainly only be a good thing. Concentrating on it with my interactions with my husband... thinking on it and coming from it when having dealings and conversations with loved ones - friends and family - that feels kind and authentic.... it feels beautiful... it feels Right.
Practicing beauty when living the mundane - standing in line at the grocery store. Waving at neighbors. Walking through the neighborhood with the children or our Annabelle. Rinsing dishes. Shining windows. When I ponder these very ordinary tasks, and think upon doing them with Beauty in my heart or intention, (instead of the usual hurry-up-and-get-this-doe-I've-a-million-0ther-things-to-do way I do things), it changes everything. It's almost like joy, but it seems even bigger. Deeper and more encompassing.
It seems liberating. Freeing. it seems like Growth.

Once I started contemplating this beautiful word, I knew it was the one I want and need.
I had a thought for a second that it doesn't obviously speak much about my relationship with the All, or Creating (as did Intention and Still), but I considered that I am not likely to forget God :), and I'm not terribly concerned that I shall forget to create consciously.
And then it occurred to me that it could be that when practicing Beauty, it could be that I find or discover a whole new thrilling possibility - that I have a beautiful relationship and place in the Universe. That would be pretty Big, too, wouldn't it?

And so there you have it.

In Beauty already exists as a category in my sidebar, and I'll not be moving or rearranging those posts, but will simply add to them.

I am so looking forward to this Beingness.
It is my intention to
notice
absorb
reflect
appreciate
seek
find
feel
smell
imitate
exude
and Be.
In beauty.

Hoops

a note: this is more of a journal entry, rather than something that is well-organized or engaging. Mostly "this is where my head is right now" notes to myself.

Something interesting has happened.
The other day I visited Homeschooling Is Freedom, scrolled down a bit, and because Pam Sarooshian was in it, I decided to watch a minute of the video that was made of the 2009 Homeschool Association of California Conference.
The Very Interesting Thing happened at in the name of John Bennett. (If you only have time for this part, push play and then drag it to about 13:17, and he'll be on in just a second.)

Sometimes it just happens that way.
Sometimes no matter how much I think that I'm able to stop, and step outside of something (like a rigid idea that looks like "our days need to include straight-forward -obvious- math"), and evaluate something for itself, by myself (ie think for myself)..... sometimes it takes someone like John Bennett to clear the fog for me.
What I mean is... there aren't a lot of "just because" 's in my world. We don't do science projects "because we should have a firm grasp on Newton's third", we do them because they're fun and interesting. I don't have Trevelyn sit down and write "because (according to some) he should be able to write easily and neatly", but rather he does it in freedom and as he needs... or not. Sitting down to write spelling words seems silly - we've never once done a spelling quiz, and he spells with accuracy. I didn't teach the children to read... Trev did that on his own, and Maddie has begun her explorations, and looks to be processing and learning in the same ways.
I've said before that to me a great day is full of "Explore", "Create", and "Discover". That's pretty much all I could want.
And I'm pretty comfortable with our laid-back approach to mathematics.
I mean, we have Jedi Math for the leapster. Math 1-2. MathBlaster. JumpStart cd's. The Allowance Game. Trev counts money. He rounds numbers. We listen to Multiplication Vacation - and love it. We bake. He has a pretty firm grasp on fractions. We play games with the cuisenaire rods. So it's not something totally outside our realm... but... there's still been something there that feels like - not looks like, on the outside, you understand, but feels like (in my head)- "are we doing enough math?"
Never once have I asked myself "Why do we need to learn Math?"
Never once did I question it.
I guess that I've always just thought that it was so Big - like reading - that it was just a given.
Mathematics is the language of numbers, and it's something that floats in the air around our heads... therefore it's something that needs to be understood in order to make sense of the world.
But never did I consider that past a particular point - past division and multiplication and percentages and knowing how to add fractions that don't have a common denominator - that the point was to teach the mind how to process in an expansive way. And I would even say in a uniform way.
So. I whole-heartedly agree with Mr. John Bennett.

"We're still teaching it because in life we need the kind of reasoning that we develop through the teaching of mathematics. So mathematics is just a medium to develop the logical thinking - the analytical thinking, the inductive reasoning, the deductive reasoning...
So I've asked myself over the years, "Why am I teaching this?" For this thinking.
So... can we do it better?
Can we do it differently?"

Ah.
[enters unschooling.]

I called to Eric, and had him come watch Mr. Bennett's bit with me.
Of course we had a big long discussion about homeschooling and unschooling.
It's kind of funny to me that Eric is still a tiny bit nervous at times about home education.
But, on the other hand, I can appreciate it, because it helps me to keep in mind where the common thought and opinion about it lies.
Thoughts like "I'll ruin her life!"
"What if I don't do it right?"
"What if we miss something important?"
My mind is so far past these thoughts or fears that I don't even consider them valid questions anymore. And as far as education goes (as in rote learning) - the only reason that children are taught to do things at particular points is because 1) most often that is initially where the natural inclination -developmentally- leans (such as beginning to write and draw at a particular age) so the system simply jumps on it and rolls with it, and 2) there is a schedule - a twelve year program- that must be adhered to. We have to get this "done" so that we can move on to the next.
And as far as I'm concerned... that's it. That's the reason for the arbitrariness.
Aside from that, as I've said before, it seems to me that school just is just an imitation of a life well lived.
I've watched my children enough, and flipped through enough workbooks and visited enough NEA curriculum pages to know what goes on in school.
Go into your local Teacher's shop. What will you find?
Well, you'll find stickers to attach to the top of worksheet pages, for one. "Good Job!"
You'll find lesson plans and worksheets about growing bean sprouts. Including black and white drawings of "this much dirt in the cup, then the seed, then this much dirt again.... how does it grow?" and you can draw a lovely garden on a piece of paper.
Or you can dig around in the backyard. And pick peppers off the vine.
In a math workbook you can draw a pizza with half pepperoni, 1/4 mushrooms, 1/2 olives, 3/4 cheese... or you can get out the flour and make your own dough and pie.
You can draw lines on a paper, grouping and sorting things together, or you can clean up toys and put them in the right boxes... and sort silverware into the drawer.
You can fill out worksheets or you can figure out time by listening to the world around you and asking Dad when he's coming home and figure out how many hours and minutes that means.
You can be taught to read by sitting down for "100 Easy Lessons" that may be quite painful for everyone, or you can learn to read by being read to and by wanting to know what dinosaur this is.
You can learn science by filling in the blank on a quiz, copied from a dry-as-dust textbook, or you can learn about microbes by digging in the compost and looking at things under the microscope.
You can create an owl out of uniform, pre-cut shapes (and be told where, exactly, they go, and be graded upon your precision - aka your ability to Follow Along and Do As You're Told)... or not.

"But this just fits our lives," says Eric. "This is who we are."
Indeed.
And my mind drifts to: If every mathematician were supported in his or her mind's processes... can you imagine? If every mechanic or engineer were recognized for operating as such... if every naturalist was given more books and time outside... if every Physicist encouraged instead of told she must be well-rounded... if every future Albert Einstein was smiled at in a knowing, accepting way instead of told "No! You must learn to tie your shoes, now... come away from that telescope!..."

[shrug]
We're not hoop jumpers. Never much cared for them. Or for the people doing the whistling and "c'mere boy, c'mere"-ing and bouncing of the hoops, for that matter.

So it's been particularly enlightening to process these thoughts after listening to Mr. Bennett.
Liberating.
Reminding - that is... the re-adjustment and re-evaluation of thoughts.

It's so nice to have one more of the foundation blocks firmly in place.

thinking

Don't you love when you can let your mind freely wander and work things through while scrubbin' the kitchen? This has to be done while everyone still sleeps, of course.

Lots of thoughts lately on my simpatico with little son. Lots of feelings like "we're not friends", "we're disconnected", etc.

Been thinking that the best way through (for me, I've discovered) is to stop focusing on "this is wrong", and start recognizing all the things that go right. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. One of my favorites - not only happens to be a philosophical and spiritual truth, but also a scientific one... as any quantum physicist will tell you.

So - the idea is to recognize the Love.

Then thoughts meander down to "I'm just not a very nurturing sort of person." (read: failure) This comes from the current disconnect, from the fact that I forget to water my houseplants, and that we don't do well with small pets in cages. (Maybe that one could be chalked up to the fact that I am so against things living in cages that subconsciously I decide they should be ultimately liberated.)

Thoughts drift to "I want my son to be happy."
The very next thought is
For his own sake, or for yours?
That stopped me for a minute.
For a while, the answer was mine.
I feel sad that we're disconnected. I feel sad that he shouts at me instead of communicating sometimes (when in these thoughts, it feels like Always, and never mind where he gets it from), I feel sad that he doesn't say "You're my best friend." So, yeah. It's a "for my sake" thing.


Is that really true? Your main reason for wanting him to feel happy is so that your relationship (your feelings) will be elevated?
I thought about that for a minute.
No, it isn't. My main reason for wanting his happiness, is because I want him to be happy. That's all. That's most important to me. I want him to be happy.

Liberated.

Then comes,
Well, it looks like you're pretty nurturing, after all.
Funny the things you're telling yourself.
What else are you telling yourself that isn't true?

I'm thinking on that one, now, as I finish these pots and pans....

sacred life sunday: space

sacred space, maybe.

but it wasn't even about the physical space so much today, as about the spiritual space.
the Inside.
the Going Within.
as it happens, i traveled into my delegated Sacred Space (I have a room to call my own)
in a very physical way...
to make rhyme and flow out of a place that has for months been exuding chaos.


(throughout my consciousness... throughout my home.... literally... this room has been a chaotic, messy jumble for quite some time.)

today has been
all about...
clearing
and cleansing...


meditatively.

listening.
Intention.


ego.
good.
God.
peace.
identity.


divinity.
The Source.
reputation.
love.
in.
warm.
beingness.


hatefulness.
energy.


quantum physics.
choosing what sort of Universe to live in.
observing.
Create-tion.


Spirit.
Infinity.

Sigh.

See what happens...

...when you wake up at two something?

You finish last night's blogpost (olm, not here, of course)

you check and read your email

you check to make sure the package you're looking forward to today is still on time

you get caught up on everyone else's blogs

you leave comments

and now you're ready to clean

and greet the sun, soon...

and it's 5:13am!

:)

It promises to be a lovely day....

learning not required

(S'pose I'll post this to both Happy and Free and OLM-- there are different readers.)

Sometimes it might take two minutes.
' might take me two days.
Might even take me a couple of weeks.
oof.
But eventually
it always comes down to
Joy.

My children are entitled to Joy
and I Choose Joy
and learning should be had in Joy.
Personal philosophy.

Some might say narcissistic or hedonistic....
and maybe that's true...
prob'ly it is.
But for me it's imperative.
I believe in a God (Universe, All) that is abundant
never condemning
and constant in the loving.
I strive to be the same for my children.

So somewhere in here is where I find What Works For Us.
And
in here, too,
I also find
What Does Not.
It's sooooo easy when it's like today.
When the children (and the Mama - imagine that! rolls eyes at herself)
are so happy
-and dashing
and digging
and Inquisitive.
So easy.

Thank God I get these days, for these days and moments are what I live for.

The other ones--
blech. The other ones.
I've picked them apart enough to know that they feel nothing like today.
Those days are so heavy. Wearing armor.
They're full and full some more of Fear
and its companion, Ego
and I just wish they'd let me be.
Be.
As I long to let my children Be.
(To be fair to myself I should say that it's not always Days that are like this, sometimes it's just a Moment, and I can pretty easily dismiss it.)

So...
The Experiment.

The difference around here in what is Working (learning in Freedom, Love, and Joy), and what is Not Working (worrying it's Not Good Enough, fearing the love of discovery has come to an exhausted end, letting a stranger's -or even a friend's- judgment stand in place of my own) is easiest for me to pinpoint in the How.

The What is not an issue. The What is what The Experiment was about. If I had my hands off, how would a day look? Turned out to look very familiar. Never mind that we didn't go to Chuck E Cheese or to see an irritating cartoon film at the dollar movie (I didn't think of them to offer to Trev)-- our days are peppered aplenty with that sort of thing.
I'm supposing that our days are pretty much what my children would choose for themselves even if I didn't ask "Want to?"

So... The How.
The How is where the joy lies.

There is "Here, let's get out this new kit, and do the first experiment, shall we?" and there is "Want to check this out with me and see what's in it?" and "Oooh... what does this do?" And skipping straight to the mystery sticky pink thing in Experiment #9.

There is "Woh! You gotta come see this!" and there's "It's time for an experiment..." (All of which I've said often enough. Some more than others, thank goodness.)

They might look the same.
Might even get roughly the same results.
But I'll tell you what...
They don't feel the same.

So I was talking about leading (there was something about a statement that said Unschoolers -er, rather unschooling Mama's- don't lead, which I say is Nonsense)... and I count all of the above scenarios as leading. Not leading to me would be no suggestions whatsoever. That would mean waiting until a friend called to say "Wanna play?" instead of ever offering "Shall we see if friends wanna play at the park today?" It would mean always having my children with me at the store to say "this looks interesting, can we get it?" instead of tossing an exotic fruit or science kit into my basket because it's something I like or am excited to share with them.

So, yes, I lead. And I follow. And sometimes I'm the coal tender.

And when it's right
it's so right.

And that's the way I want it.
I want it Right
and I want it natural
(nature flowing to and from our family as a soulful unit and as individuals)
and I want it in Joy.

Not fear.
Not ego.
Joy.

Again and again and again
I choose Joy.
And I'm gonna do it like I wrote it, dammit.

Leading

This is what stuck with me the most.
At Crunchy Christian Mama's blog, she said that someone around her said she wasn't an Unschooler any longer. The reason given was that she led her children.
Which I smile at.

But of course it also raised lots of feelings and questions for me... at the top of the list was "Are we unschoolers?"
Not in a panicky, judging, let's-tear-this-apart way, gnash my teeth and get down to the bare bones sort of way, but in an objectional, "hmmmm.... let's stop for a minute, look around, and take notes" sort of way. I've exposed enough nuclei and quarks on this issue lately to be comfortable with the How we do things... but this time I wanted to examine the What.

So, I had the idea for the Experiment.
The first thing was to take the issue to Trev. We talked about homeschooling, and unschooling, and how that's different from school, and the way other people do things. We talked about the things he likes to do. We talked about having diversity in our days. We talked about finding lots of different things interesting. Even pilgrims.

I wondered if I was doing right by my children. I wondered if I was opening books on Early America in the name of exposure and diversity, or because I wanted to feel like A Good Homeschoool Mom. (Wretched title, for me, by the way. Feels like a minivan. No offense intended... just not my style.)

So I talked to Trevelyn. And gave the next day to him.

Admittedly, it was hard!

About an hour after he was given the reigns he didn't want them. I briefly considered giving up the idea, but I wanted really wanted to see the thing through.

He decided on the planetarium for a film. Under the Sea 3D. I asked if we could see Extreme Planets, too-- I really have been wanting to see it. He relented, I took it back, he said "no, it's okay, we can see it, too, Mom," I was still trying to decide if I was cheating or not, and in the end we were going to have to rush, and I decided not to.
See? Hard to stay out of it.

To the park, not to the park, Maddie demands "yes!!" to the park...
again... hard for us all to stay out of it.

I didn't really know how long this experiment would last.
The plan was 'Trev leads'.
Then 'Maddie leads'.
Would our days look totally different from our usual experiences?
Would we sit and watch Trev play his game all day?
Would we have tea parties?
Would books be banned? ;)

Not quite.
Turns out that it was pretty familiar.

I wondered at first if it was because Trev was disinterested. Or if he was feeling pressured, and couldn't think.
And as the day wore on, I wondered if I should have offered more ideas. If I shouldn't have just left it at "If you could do anything in the whole world, what would you do today?" (though I did offer some ideas.)
Maybe I should have mentioned Classic? (even though we went yesterday.)
Maybe I should have mentioned the dollar movie to see Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs? (In my defense, I didn't think of it 'til later.)

But... ding. We do these kinds of things every day. I'm not opposed to a dollar movie. I'm not opposed to spending four or five hours at the park or skating rink. That's business-as-usual for us.

We Enjoy Lots Of Different Things.
Not only that, but We All Lead.
Moment to moment, day to day, we pack in things that are interesting to each of us. Some are boring to some of us. I about cried of boredom a couple of times during Little House In the Big Woods. But my babes liked it, so I kept going. I'm not as enthralled as Maddie with puzzles. But we play. Sometimes I'm led to the roller rink. I would never choose to go there by myself. I have a good time because my babes have a good time.

My point is not that "I suffer, therefore it won't hurt my children to be bored over something, either," but that there is an ebb and flow to our days and moments.
We lead, we follow.
We live together, we love, and we learn. We are inspired by lots of different things, and we are influenced by lots of different things.
Our lives are lead by other things sometimes... as free as we are, we are not free in every moment. There are appointments sometimes, there are children, phone calls... needs. Things that can be viewed as disruptions. None of us live independently of others.
We're influenced by weather, society, the calendar, seasons, events in our city, and the money that's in our pocket.

The joy in my life comes from many different things-- creating, exploring, discovering... space to live and breathe and just Be.
Toward this end I make offers to -and sometimes lead- my children.
And toward this end I follow.