a glimpse into my journey toward unschooling

Sunday afternoon a young friend of the family asked me how Henry learns.  In what environment do we "have classes"?  What subjects does he study, and when?  Who teaches him?  These questions used to make me feel sweaty and afraid.  Of course children who attend fairly traditional schools will want to know what goes on in a different type of classroom, i.e. the classroom of life.  Why should I let these kinds of questions bother me?

I've come to see that it's not the question at all, but my personal feelings about breaking with "tradition."  Going into homeschooling--pondering it and such--I felt like a tourist looking on.  I didn't feel its terrain "belonged" to me.

Now I see that as a false perception--not just on my own part, but on anyone's.  Learning is not a foreign land.  It "belongs" to all of us.  Whether we or our children learn in "traditional" classrooms, or in the car on the way to the traditional classroom, we are all learners, all the time.

There's a simple truth, but it's profounder than I can wrap my head around.  Each one of us is responsible for his or her learning.  Parents are responsible for holding the space in which their children learn, and that can mean choosing to send their children to a school.  It can also mean choosing to educate them in other ways.

I now see that my job is not to educate Henry.  Neither is doing so Joel's job.  Together we have experienced that Henry learns what he wants to and is ready to learn.  We, or I'll just speak for myself, I love, repeat:  LOVE facilitating Henry's learning when he is ready to know more about something.  It is a joy to feel and witness his readiness to claim skills and explore subject areas--conventional and otherwise.

It sounds cliche to me at this point, but I can't argue with something so true it has become an aphorism:  life is for learning.  All of life is for learning.  I'm delighted to be a learner now, and delighted to watch my husband, our children, our parents, our neighbors, our wider circle of friends, continue to be learners.

Now.  I guess I was going to say something about unschooling.  I've read some John Holt and liked him.  There are websites.  Dayna Martin, a self-styled unschooling expert, has been my greatest teacher.  While I used to think, Wow!  Have you got the nerve to put yourself out there like that!  I now see her as a caring friend.  That woman has inspired me to let go of fear and enjoy life.  Check her and her resources out.  She has a powerful way of addressing the perceptions that can stand in the way of our living with the kind of joy and purpose most of us (all of us, no?) really want to claim.

She has helped me tremendously in my mothering journey.  That's for sure.  A six on the enneagram, I've got fear d.o.w.n.  What I've needed to work on is trust.  Ah, yes.  I've known that, but giving myself permission to trust rather than be afraid in a culture where parenting and educating are simply fraught with fear-based habits, behaviors, assumptions...why, THAT is another matter.

Be well, dear readers.  I cherish this space for checking in with you and myself.  Also love reading your blogs, whether I subscribe to you or have just "met" you.

self-compassion, anyone?

This topic has come to me from many directions, so that must mean it is one of my main life assignments this semester ;). 

Do you do self-compassion?

I read about Kristin Neff's book by the same title in Spirituality and Health, my favorite magazine.  This week, I found it at the local library in the 7-day checkout section, so I brought it home.  It is a must-read, I can tell.

I have friends who practice self-compassion, family members who do, a husband who coaches me in it.  I learn from all these people...

I understand what Kristin Neff is saying.  I know my inner need to chuck the absurd notion that life's a competition. 

I never did get "self-esteem," as it was, in my opinion, marketed like a tangible good, a consumer item I could go out and buy, if I followed the right steps to get to the store, or had parents who followed the right parenting style, or something.

What I do get is that I want to give my children the gift of me in a healthy state of mind.  And, believe me, I'm there sometimes.  I am not there, though, when I'm on a self-judging jag.  Oh no, I'm not.

And I'm timid about stepping away from the terra cognita of "you're only as good as the life you lead, the quality of work you put out, the cleanliness of your home or car or fingernails..."

That is enough for now.  The compassionate thing for me to do for myself is to sleep. 

Thinkin' 'bout stuff

A boisterous late-night HELLO to my dear real and imagined readers!  What a treat it is to read blogs and participate in them.  Facebook is fun 'n all (I really am in an apostrophic mood), but I like the reined-in intimacy that this mode of communication provides.

I am so inspired by the people around me and on the Web who seek to live awake, on purpose, and with joy.

The particular flavor of joy I've been feeling of late is the type that belongs more in the subdued joy category than the crazy, colorful joy category.

I joyfully accept that.  I like neutral colors, too.  And we're in that neutral, Thanksgiving-y joy season.  Reflective joy.

Here are some of my neutral, subdued, reflective joys:  my family, the four of us and our extended family; birthday parties in churches; my-sister's-just-become-an-art-therapist parties (love those!); a gazania plant that continues to open and close in the sun; yellow maple leaves on the windshield of the car across the street and the neighbor boy wearing Anna's hat; Anthony Bourdain; John Taylor Gatto; the Renaissance Soul idea; the fact that I am bearing witness to the people my kids are becoming; sermons delivered by a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and an almost-nine-year-old in an empty church sanctuary this morning; the powerful knowledge that I can ask.for.help.; vegan cookbooks and all manner of cookbooks; a row of knitting here and there; preparations for an Advent spiral; a working dishwasher; love, love, love; health; delicious food; fondue, sausage, chicken burritos, green smoothies, roasted nuts, mangoes, sweet potatoes, chocolate chip cookies...help me!

Amen.  And goodnight!

daughters, cows and goddesses

Assumption of Mary yesterday.  Sunday night I had the privilege of reading this gorgeous poem while a friend danced at a vesper service in Mary's honor.  What an all-round gorgeous opportunity.

I've celebrated August 15 in an inward sort of way for quite a few years now.  But I don't know why.  I learned about the day from one of my all-time favorite books, Gertrud Mueller Nelson's To Dance with God.

I don't understand and just-plain-can't articulate my relationship with Mary, but I enjoy it.  And I suspect it points me to an even broader goddess/Sophia love.  I need to read this book next.

Yesterday I spoke with my dad on the phone.  He told me about a 24/7 dairy farm he visited in Vermont.  Robots milk the cows.  I find that depressing and disrespectful to the process of lactation.  I have been moving away from cow's milk over the last five months, and see myself continuing in that direction.  Never say never, and everything in moderation and all.  No need for extremism on this end.  Yet it's that subjugation thing at work, even (or especially) at the dairy.  The suppression of female energy, the distortion of male energy, the absence of balance.

None of it is new, and it's not getting me down, really.  But I am captivated by the exploration, by the old women I meet in my dreams, by the intersections of past and future that are as near as a baby girl's soft skin next to a mother's withered hand.

Knowing I'm never alone on this exciting leg of the journey of life is a great consolation.  I'm wondering and noticing things women have wondered and noticed forever.  And change still happens, even as the questions persist.

on mystery, revolution and the goddess who mothers

Today I had the privilege of hearing Bess Klassen Landis share about her experience being the daughter of a woman who was brutally murdered before the age of 42.  Bess was thirteen at the time.

Stories like that aren't soon forgotten, especially when they are told by individuals who speak from a deep place of peace and surrender, as Bess did.  As I reflect on Bess's story, the songs with which she accompanied it, and the blessing that led into the silence that followed her sharing, my heart is summoned yet again to heed its job and calling:  to be true to the life I've been given, to let my life speak, to take the business of my humanity seriously and lightly at the same time.

I also had the privilege of sitting face-to-face with my mother this morning after Bess's sermon.  We don't go to church together, so I seldom see her on Sundays.  These days, I'm more mindful than ever of the ways I resemble her:  the gifts I bear that are like hers, the gifts I bear that are different from her own, and the genes within me that came from her.  My way of being in the world is both like hers and different from hers.

Ach!  I'm not remembering the truth of what I wanted to say as accurately now, after the fact, as I was when I was thinking these thoughts of profundity three or more hours ago.  Suffice it to say, as a forty-year-old woman, I take the call to live my life more seriously than I did ten and twenty and twenty-five years ago.  Time is fleeting.  It's true.  Now is the time to live intentionally and do the things I want to do.

And playing magnets with a certain adorable girl (after changing her diaper) is first on the to-do list.

Oh!  And the goddess and revolution thoughts:  I was conscious of a mothering presence--the goddess--sitting near me today as I reflected on Bess's words and my own experience of them.  She is ever-near, and I struggle to find the words to describe her salty, grassy, dry and wet greatness.  So that's the mystery, too.  And the revolution?  Well, it's just trying to claim the days as sacred, recognizing that they certainly, certainly are.

vows to self and life

This 30 Day Vegan experience has been a good one for me.  How I have marveled at the plant realm's ability to nourish me, many days exclusively.  I have not kept a vegan diet 100% of the time, and I have not felt compelled to.

What I have done is discover that, at 40 and at this stage in my life, I am much opener to dietary changes than I was ten or fifteen years ago.  I am now more curious:  how does dairy affect my health?  What does my body feel like while eating wheat?  Meat? 

Sugar...that's a different topic, maybe one I'll explore later on this year.  Who knows?

For now, I joyfully keep a vow to remain plant-centered in my eating.  I crave beef and fish, and enjoy eating those meats.  I listen to my body and what it asks for.  What an amazing experience!

What I've been surprised by is that avocados, raw cashews, maple syrup, kale, sweet potatoes, coconut milk and oil, dark or semi-sweet chocolate, bananas, artichokes, blueberries, almonds, and many other things are more than luxurious enough to get me through the day. 

I give thanks for the grass-fed hamburger I've been privileged to enjoy, the free-range eggs that are on their way to me, and the plants that are the center of my sustenance.

In the midst of all the toddler-care, homeschooling and family responsibilities, I took the opportunity to make and share a delicious vegan soup on Saturday.  As Heather shared with the other retreatants on Saturday, soup-making and, of course, all cooking, can be a spiritual discipline.

Not only that, our very lives depend on our cooking and food preparation.  I sense this in a deeper way now than I used to.  The necessity of chopping so many fruits and vegetables has attuned me to that.

I was asked Saturday evening if I was sad to return from the conference I attended last week.  "Was it hard to come home [to reality]?"

I guess the vow I am and have been making is one (many) to use ritual, daily habits, how I eat, to try and keep life "all of a piece."

I have to chuckle, though, as I read that last sentence, because I'm a newbie, a baby, an ever-needing-to-begin-again beginner with regard to habits.

Yet I am conscious.  I am conscious that I want both the ecstasy and the laundry, to borrow the title of the Jack Kornfield book I have been wanting to read.

Livin' with polarities.  That's life.  That's me.  Here I am. 

Thanks be to God.  Blessed be.

30 Day Vegan, Week 2

I have eaten several animal foods this week:  some salmon with real egg mayonnaise for breakfast on Thursday, a taste of sausage and sauerkraut on Tuesday evening, and a host of things today, including coffee cake and poached eggs.

I have decided to continue eating mostly vegan through the Lenten season.  I feel this is a life-affirming decision because I want to have more time to let my body discover what this way of eating is like; because I have interrupted the pattern in a major way today, I look forward to more weeks of sustained plant-based food. 

But I will continue eating whatever on Sundays.  That's just how it goes.  Also, I'm traveling this week.  I have no idea what that's going to look like, but I plan to go with the flow and enjoy my food, whatever it is.

I am noticing:

mood and emotions:  I have felt a little sad to be "off" my plan today.  I could have gone vegan at lunch.  The menu was groundnut stew with a lot of accompaniments.  The stew, though, looked so good, and the beef was grown by the farmers who served it to me at their table....I did start the day with a delicious green smoothie, using Heather's recipe, including kale.

On Saturday I attended a gathering where ice cream cake was served.  It was no problem for me to decline a piece.  That amazes me.  I felt great saying no.  I was enjoying myself and had zero emotional need to eat the cake, as well as zero physical desire.  Coming from me, that's pretty curious.

chewing and digestion:  haven't had as many raw vegetables this week as the previous week, and I miss that.  I am noticing that I'm enjoying straight-up plain vegetables (sans dressing or tahini or whatever) more than I thought I would, on the occasions when I eat things plain.  Strange as it seems to me, I need to eat more fiber this week ;).

cravings:  I seem to crave what Heather suggests.  Last week she mentioned salmon, and I couldn't get it out of my mind.  I baked some for Joel and decided I had to eat just a little.  It was sooooooo good.

This way of eating does not exclude chocolate.  That is the only thing I crave regularly.  I have been eating chocolate chips every day and basically feeling good about that.  Perhaps I will try going without sometime this week.

biggest challenge:  This one is no surprise.  It's getting my food ready while also cooking for the family.  We are all eating some of the same things:  quinoa this week, some of the vegetables and fruits, but I'm also making food just for them--not complicated stuff, but things that still take time to make.

greatest accomplishment:  I would say that one was going to a brunch and turning down the ice cream cake.  That is just so unlike me.  And I felt so good doing it.  Very curious indeed.  I am enjoying my current weight, too.  Without so much as trying I suppose I've lost a couple pounds.  That's a pleasure, because my favorite vintage skirt fits just right, and it's been too tight around the waist since I bought it a year ago.

next week I plan to:  get through the week.  My toddler and I are going on a trip to Indiana to attend an exciting conference.  I'm planning on letting go and enjoying the ride.