Hippy
Being a single mama and staying home to raise 3 kids on a small budget
takes creativity. Some circumstances may be seen as hard for some. I
can see that. But it doesn’t have to be the story I tell. I get to
chose that. I am really coming into my hippy-ness. And into my power.
I always felt unworthy of the term “hippy”, like I was too neo to
deserve a title like that, like I wasn’t hippy enough (kinda like how
you can’t live “green” enough) because [insert horror music] I’ve
never listened to the Grateful Dead (!!!!!!!), but before you
completely invalidate my hippy-ness, I grew up on Janis Joplin and Bob
Marley and probably many other artists who are hippy enough.
Well, I just had a breakthrough. I was writing to my mom about our
ability to stay positive during circumstances she sees as hard, and I
wrote, “Hippies don’t need money, cell phones, and electricity, as
long as there is patchouli oil and drum circles — rofl”. But
really!!!!! Some of the most spiritual people to walk this earth
liberated themselves from their attachments to things. Who needs
church and cell phones — I’m having profound spiritual awakenings as
a mama watching my kids grow and learn and love and live and heal!
Being a mama is one of the most esoteric experiences I can imagine!!!
Who needs all that frivolous stuff to be happy or be allowed to be
positive?? Hippies don’t need much more than good company, a bus, and
some earth to dance upon. Has she not read my blog description???
Hahaha.
I now dub me a hippy :) I officially accept myself :))
Btw, another “comeback” that I have been really feeling lately is “You
say that like it’s a bad thing!” I mean really, some things are
overrated.
Unschool Curriculum
As home schoolers, we often hear people ask what curriculum we use, or
concerned family members don’t understand how my kids are learning
since we don’t use textbooks and worksheets. I would like to take some
time to explain how unschoolers learn and how life is the curriculum,
and I plan to add over time to this with our real life experiences (on
the sidebar, click the tag/category called “unschool curriculum”).
Let me first state that unschoolers don’t have to understand how this
works for it to work. It is perfectly acceptable for an unschool
family to simply have faith and trust that their kids are learning and
live life without disecting their experiences and dividing it up into
academic subjects and justifying their choices to well-intentioned
loved ones. But in case you want to, or in case you don’t have that
faith:
I first learned the details of life learning from Mary Hood, in her
books on relaxed homeschooling. She talked about how you can take life
experiences and find how they fit into school subjects, like going to
a history museum could be reading (reading the plaques or preparing
ahead of time by doing some research), history, social studies
(interacting with other people, the drive to the museum was learning
about your city, etc.), math (if you were figuring anything that had
to do with dates), and so much more. She advocated that if you felt
some subject was missing from your kids’ lives, leaving a book on
something from the subject on the couch and someone was bound to pick
it up and want to share their new read with the family. There was a
lot more to it than just that, but I think you get the gist. She
talked about family-involved unit studies, where the whole family
could get very involved in learning something. She was very proactive
about learning things and organized (daily planners and journals to
keep track of stuff to “sort” later). Mind you, these books were
written several years ago, so maybe the Hood family are unschoolers
now? Relaxed unschooling is very similar to unschooling, but different
in that relaxed homeschooling still extracts learning from living and
may encourage certain things to get a more “well-rounded” academic
experience.
My next introduction to life learning was through my Child Development
class on preschool curriculum, called Creative Curriculum, which uses
a style called emergent curriculum. Emergent curriculum means that the
learning and the bases for it emerges from the learner, from the
child. If a child shows an interest in cars, for example, the teachers
role is to provide more opportunities for the child to explore with
cars, so maybe they will add some ramps and some different kinds of
vehicles and maybe some books about how cars work and a table to
explore building ones own cars (or whatever with wheels). There are
lots of ideas the teacher can impliment once they have taken their
cues from the child. Creative Curriculum is a series of books (for
different age groups) about how kids are learning through play. For
example, block play promotes social and emotional development,
physical development, cognitive development, and language development.
Kids learn literacy (vocabulary and language, understanding of books
and other texts, print and letters and words), mathematics (number
concepts, patterns and relationships, geometry and spacial sense,
measurement), science (physical science, life science, earth and the
environment), social studies (spaces and geography, people and how
they live), the arts (drama, visual arts), and technology (basic
operations and concepts, technology tools). These were taken from the
Creative Curriculum book, and if you want more or clarification on
anything, please feel free to ask. So, all of that learning that
happens with some blocks!!!! Kids can learn so much from every
experience that they have, especially when they are given time to get
into depth on a project, which is one of the luxuries homeschooling
affords. I was telling my oldest, yesterday, that one of my favorite
things about unschooling is that we can spend an entire day painting
(which we did, for the most part). It was amazing to see the learning
that I was witnessing from that activity — social skills between my
kids, art through painting, geometry through different kinds/styles of
painting, physics from body movement and paint properties, fine and
gross motor skills and fine-tuning, not to mention cognitive skills
like concentration, focus, manifesting something from our thoughts
into reality, etc. Where one person may see some kids with
paintbrushes and paint, another can see so much more. That can be
applied to any and all activities. I asked the teachers at the school
there if they thought this kind of teaching and learning could be
applied to older kids, and everytime they said definately. Got me
thinking about starting a private school for older kids in this fashion.
So, the next chapter in my life learning experiences was the term
unschooling, as applied to how children learn academic-type things.
This went right along with how I learned kids learn from the Creative
Curriculum, and the role of the parent seemed so very similar to that
of a teacher in the emergent curriculum model. Except, it wasn’t so
organized and documented — it didn’t need to be, because this was
your child so you didn’t have to prove how your child was learning in
your program or document to continue receiving funding or your
paycheck or whatever. Kind of like a difference between teacher and
parent — we don’t have 20 strange new kids who will come to us at one
certain level and our job is to pass on at the next level. We know our
children from before birth, we know the family members they get
certain traits from, we read the books with them or they can’t wait to
tell us about them so there is no need to quiz them on what they are
learning — we can just be with them and love the learning we witness
and are blessed to be a part of. With unschooling, there is this trust
that kids are naturally curious about the world around them and will
naturally adjust their interests to suit the needs that the world is
bringing to their attention. There is a lot more trust of the child
and the learning process in unschooling than in relaxed homeschooling.
The goal is to live learning, not extract learning from life.
Radical unschooling applies the concept of learning from life to all
areas of life, not just academics. So, the curriculum of radical
unschooling also involves bedtimes and chores and eating and teeth
brushing and television and many more things. We trust that our kids
are learning from every experience they have (“good” or “bad”) and are
capable of making the choices that feel right to them, and that this
should be good enough for us. We trust that nothing is black or white,
and look for the million shades of gray to find which one or so fits
our familes’ needs the best (that is touching upon consensual living a
bit, but radical unschooling really is about letting down our rigid
blinders and seeing the many ways things are done and all the learning
that comes from them ). It’s about trusting their development in all
areas and trusting the path that they chose for themselves, because we
know that so much learning is happening all over the place, if that is
what we are looking for…
Kids are Amazing
Some quotes that really inspired me:
“Children coming forth today have a greater capacity to deal with the greater variety of information that is coming forward than you did. They deliberately are coming forth into this environment where there is more to contemplate. This generation gap that you are talking about, it has ever been thus. Each new generation, every new individual, that comes forth, is coming with you having prepared a different platform for them to proceed from. There is this thing that gets in the way of that that says, “I’m the parent. I got here first. I know more than you do.” From the children’s perspective, and from the purity of their Nonphysical Perspective, what they are saying is, “You’re the parent. You got here first. You prepared a platform that I am leaping off from — and my leap will be beyond anything that you have ever known.” ” — Abraham Hicks
“Children, as persons, are entitled to the greatest respect. Children are given to us as free flying souls, after which we clip their wings in the same way we domesticate the wild mallard. Children should become our role models for they are coated with the spirit from which they came – out of the ether, clean, innocent, brimming with the delight of life, aware of the beauty of the simplest thing – a snail, a bud, a shadow in the garden. Children are closest to the angels.” — Gerry Spence
Black & White
Growing up in a abusive/fear-filled household leads to definitions that are black and white, this or that. It’s hard to see the abstract because the abstract will get you a ton of hurt! You gotta know exactly where to step and where not to step.
Fish
Einstein has a quote that goes somethig like “If you judge a fish by
how well he can climb a wall, he’s gonna spend his whole life thinking
there is somethig wrong with him”. Well, I’ve sooooo been there. Done
tryin to scale walls — I love swimming, and if my kids love swimming,
too, then we are gonna swim. And if they decide at some point they
want to try scaling walls, they can try that, too. Or maybe they are
meant for running marathons. Or flying. Who knows. Like I said, if I
like swimming and they like swimming, then we swim. And we are
swimming, and we are finding other fish and feeling really good about
it. But there is this other fish who is trying so hard to scale walls
and seems to be judging us harshly for loving swimming and not
continuing to try scaling walls when it will never work for us. We are
fish.
Judgment
Through my new anxiety lenses, I had a realization about what judgment
is. When someone observes something that creates anxiety in them, the
feeler judges that what they are observing is wrong because it makes
them uncomfortable. Interesting take on it, huh?
I understand why when I shifted my parenting and living style to RU,
how I became judgmental about more mainstream styles because they made
me less comfortable (especially when coupled with my anxieties about
how I had done those things with my kids, etc.). And how mainstream
parenting judges us or any alternative styles. And why ex-smokers are
harder on smokers than just non-smokers are, etc.
Success
I am very afraid of it, and it paralyzes me. I am very talented and make these amazing things with the intention of selling them, but just don’t believe in my work enough or feel comfortable selling anything. How do I get over that? I spent my last $100 on hula hoop supplies and now am sitting here with all these hoops! I have done this with many ventures. There is some invisible barrier to my success. What is it?
My Dream
So, last night I had this dream that I woke up taking WAY too literally, until it suddenly clicked.
I dreamt that I was just going about my business in life, bein’, and livin’, and there was this guy in a wheelchair who was so severly disabled that someone needed to push him in the chair, and I almost didn’t even notice his face because of how severely disabled he was. Then, I started to get to know the guy, have lunch with him, and I started to fall in love with him, and he began to be less disabled — could do more and more things as our love grew, and he became so very beautiful! He was just sooooo handsome. And he began to speak — said a whole sentence before I woke up, and could jump off of a short cliff into a water hole to swim, and could drive. We had a baby! I saw life flow all around this baby, like in a movie scene where the focus is on the baby and you see life happening all around the baby, different clips from different experiences. I woke up thinking I was going to fall deeply in love with someone who was parapalegic and somehow have a child with him… Until I realized that that crippled person was me. As I start to fall in live with myself, I will stop seeing me as crippled, and I will see my beauty and capabilities and hear my own voice — it will all grow. And through this love of me, I will give birth to life experiences.
Home
This is my favorite song right now. I play it on repeat for hours on end and sing it to my kids softly to help them fall asleep sweet:
Imported from my art blog
The Art Journey Before Me (5/14/10):
I am very excited about starting down my art journey. I have wanted to self-teach me how to draw and paint and such. I love scrapbooking, and I am fabulous at crafting, and I know that I have style and can spot my style in a heartbeat. I just have some barriers to creating my own art. So, I have been browsing art and a couple art blogs, and I have found the inspiration to get started. I am starting a comic, called Outlaw Midwife, and I want to learn how to draw my own comics, so that is one goal, but ultimately, it is a lifelong journey with no destination :)) I am so excited about this!!
Poorman’s Pewter:
Gonna use this technique to create some awesome stuff!!!
Here is a pic, to get you to click on the link :)
Majestic Spiral Dance:
beautiful works of handcrafted art :)) Soooo much fun and soooooooo
gratifying to create :)
First Batch of Hula Hoops
The Man Hoop (LOL)
Blue Zebra
Pink and Brown Batik
Future hoops
Here is an amazing article called “Hooping IS Motherhood“.
Our Wildcrafted Life
As you may have noticed, I like change and movement. And some of the readers of this blog know I am often transcending titles and names. So, having said that, I am changing the URL of this blog from thatunschoolflavor.blogspot.com to ourwildcraftedlife.blogspot.com
And I am changing the title of the blog from “Savoring That Unschool Flavor in Our Wildcrafted Life” to…
Also, I am combining my art, craft, and collections blog with this one — a one-stop-shop for me :)
Benefits of TV
I read this article on Dayna Martin’s site unschoolingamerica.com
Why Unschoolers Rise Above Anti-TV Elitism
By, Dayna Martin
We presently live in a “book worshipping” culture. Television is definitely something that is looked down upon as a lower-form of learning and entertainment by many. TV is still so new historically. Before TV, for example, comic books and some radio shows were also thought to be destructive and evil. I know in time attitudes about TV will change. People will learn to value it for the amazing learning tool it is and not be afraid of it.
In our lives, TV is one of many options my children have to learn from and enjoy. I do not value books over TV for my children’s learning. I trust them and value all of their choices and support their interests. I can’t imagine how small our world would be without TV! As an Unschooling Mom, I want to give my children as BIG a world as possible! TV introduces us to so many topics and interests that we may not have learned about otherwise. We have a joyful relationship with TV!
The topics of interest that have been introduced to us through TV have been incredible! It is a window to our world! Being Homeschoolers, I love the fact that my kids know all about modern pop culture. They are able to have conversations with anyone, including kids in school about things current and popular in our world. They aren’t the “weird, sheltered homeschoolers” who have no idea what Sponge bob is (for example) making them all the more different from kids their age. They feel totally “normal” around anyone because they know so much about what others are discussing in social situations.
Also, through TV, our family has witnessed True Human Potential! From skydiving, to contortionists, to people saving endangered species, to learning to cook Italian, to building a Chopper, to ‘Dirty Jobs’, to birth and death and love…..TV is not all doom and gloom like I was led to believe from some in the naturally minded community after I had my first son. It is not something we fear! It is something we value greatly.
There are so many awesome, interesting, enriching things on TV! Just like books, there are some good and some bad. I do not choose to never read again, just because there are books out there with something I wouldn’t approve of! TV is no different. No one forces us to watch the news or things we personally don’t value. Some days we watch no TV and some rainy days hours. It depends on the day. Just like reading, some days we read 10 books, some days none.
I honestly believe that my children have such an incredibly broad knowledge base, and TV has contributed to that as much as books, and every other resource we have in our lives. As Unschoolers, we use TV like a rich buffet before us. We joyfully take what we want and leave the rest!
Love
This is an old daily quote by (I think the name is) Michael Brown:
Love. Consider that the caliber of love we feel for ourselves shows its face most clearly when we are experiencing any sort of pain, discomfort, and suffering. Can we love ourselves when we feel afraid, angry, and sad? Can we love ourselves when we feel ashamed, embarrassed, and humiliated? Can we love ourselves when we feel superior, arrogant, and righteous? Can we love ourselves when we feel hopeless, broken, and lost? Can we love ourselves when we feel bored, useless, and unproductive? Consider that if we can only love ourselves when we feel good, positive, and upbeat – then it is likely that our current perception of love is lacking in the elixir of gentleness.
Win-Win
Thanks, Scott Noelle, for this easy explination of basically what we refer to as “win-win”.
:: Generalizing Desires ::
Suppose your child wants to bounce on your friend’s
antique sofa, but you want to respect your friend’s
property. The conventional response is to say NO and
block the child’s behavior, using force if necessary.
Being unconventional, you ask yourself instead, “How
can we both have what we want?” But these *specific*
desires are incompatible. So you *generalize* one or
both of them by looking for the underlying desires.
For example, your child wants to jump on the sofa
because it feels good to defy gravity. You want to
respect your friend’s property because you want to be
a good friend.
Now you can put these more general desires together
and begin to see ways they could fit. Perhaps you
could be a good friend to your child by helping him or
her find another way to defy gravity.
Keep looking deeper and you’ll find many, more general
desires that will lead you to an abundant supply of
mutually satisfying choices.
http://dailygroove.net/generalizing
Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2010 by Scott Noelle
Pronoia: the belief that the universe is conspiring in your favor
Found this elsewhere a bit ago and wanted to share here :)
Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
The website is http://www.freewillastrology.com/home.shtml
And here’s a (VERY LONG) excerpt:
Pronoia Therapy
In my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, I offer an extensive array of experiments, games, rituals, and meditations you can use to boost your levels of ingenious happiness. Below is an excerpt of a few of those exercises.
If you feel so moved, send your responses and testimony to me at beautyandtruth@freewillastrology.com.
*
TORRENTIAL PRONOIA THERAPY
Experiments and exercises in becoming a blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate, eternally changing Master of Transgressive Beauty
1. Take inventory of the extent to which your “No” reflex dominates your life. Notice for 24 hours (even in your dreams) how often you say or think.
“No.”
“That’s not right.”
“I don’t like them.”
“I don’t agree with that.”
“They don’t like me.”
“That should be different from what it is.”
Then retrain yourself to say “YES” at least 51 percent of the time. Start the transformation by saying “YES” aloud 22 times right now.
2. Go to the ugliest or most forlorn place you know — a drugstore parking lot, the front porch of a crack house, a toxic waste dump, or the place that symbolizes your secret shame — and build a shrine devoted to beauty, truth, and love.
Here are some suggestions about what to put in your shrine: a silk scarf; a smooth rock on which you’ve inscribed a haiku or joke with a felt-tip pen; coconut cookies or ginger candy; pumpkin seeds and an origami crane; a green kite shaped like a dragon; a music CD you love; a photo of your hero; a votive candle carved with your word of power; a rubber ducky; a bouquet of fresh beets; a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
3. Late at night when there’s no traffic, stride down the middle of an empty road that by day is crawling with cars. Dance, careen, and sing songs that fill you with pleasurable emotions. Splay your arms triumphantly as you extemporize prayers in which you make extravagant demands and promises.
Give pet names to the trees you pass, declare your admiration for the workers who made the road, and celebrate your sovereignty over a territory that usually belongs to heavy machines and their operators.
4. What causes happiness? Brainstorm about it. Map out the foundations of your personal science of joy. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good.
To get you started, I’ll name some experiences that might rouse your gratification: engaging in sensual pleasure; seeking the truth; being kind and moral; contemplating the meaning of life; escaping your routine; purging pent-up emotions. Do any of these work for you? Name at least ten more.
5. Have you ever seen the game called “Playing the Dozens”? Participants compete in the exercise of hurling witty insults at each other. Here are some examples: “You’re so dumb, if you spoke your mind you’d be speechless.” “Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper.” “You’re so ugly, you couldn’t get laid if you were a brick.”
I invite you to rebel against any impulse in you that resonates with the spirit of “Playing the Dozens.” Instead, try a new game, “Paying the Tributes.” Choose worthy targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart, true, and amusing praise about them.
The best stuff will be specific to the person you’re addressing, not generic, but here are some prototypes: “You’re so far-seeing, you can probably catch a glimpse of the back of your own head.” “You’re so ingenious, you could use your nightmares to get rich and famous.” “Your mastery of pronoia is so artful, you could convince me to love my worst enemy.”
6. Salvador Dalí once staged a party in which guests were told to come disguised as characters from their nightmares. Do the reverse. Throw a bash in which everyone is invited to arrive dressed as a character from the most glorious dream they remember.
7. On a big piece of cardboard, make a sign that says, “I love to help; I need to give; please take some money.” Then go out and stand on a traffic island while wearing your best clothes, and give away money to passing motorists. Offer a little more to drivers in rusty brown Pinto station wagons and 1976 El Camino Classics than those in a late-model Lexus or Jaguar.
8. In response to our culture’s ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking.
While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz.
During this celebration, you tune out the numbing banality of the daily grind. But instead of shrinking into asceticism, you indulge in uninhibited explorations of joy, release, and expansion. Turning away from the mildly stimulating distractions you seek out when you’re bored or worried, you become inexhaustibly resourceful as you search for unsurpassable sources of cathartic pleasure.
Try it for a day or a week: the Bliss Blitz.
9. When many people talk about their childhoods, they emphasize the alienating, traumatic experiences they had, and fail to report the good times. This seems dishonest—a testament to the popularity of cynicism rather than a reflection of objective truth.
I don’t mean to downplay the way your early encounters with pain demoralized your spirit. But as you reconnoiter the promise of pronoia, it’s crucial for you to extol the gifts you were given in your early years: all the helpful encounters, kind teachings, and simple acts of grace that helped you bloom.
In Homer’s epic tale The Odyssey, he described nepenthe, a mythical drug that induced the forgetfulness of pain and trouble. I’d like to imagine, in contrast, a potion that stirs up memories of delight, serenity, and fulfillment. Fantasize that you have taken such a tonic. Spend an hour or two remembering the glorious moments from your past.
10. “You can’t wait for inspiration,” proclaimed writer Jack London. “You have to go after it with a club.” That sounds too violent to me, though I agree in principle that aggressiveness is the best policy in one’s relationship with inspiration.
Try this: Don’t wait for inspiration. Go after it with a butterfly net, lasso, sweet treats, fishing rod, court orders, beguiling smells, and sincere flattery.
11. Become a rapturist, which is the opposite of a terrorist: Conspire to unleash blessings on unsuspecting recipients, causing them to feel good.
Before bringing your work as a rapturist to strangers, practice with two close companions. Offer them each a gift that fires up their ambitions. It should not be a practical necessity or consumer fetish, but rather a provocative tool or toy. Give them an imaginative boon they’ve been hesitant to ask for, a beautiful thing that expands their self-image, a surprising intervention that says, “I love the way you move me.”
12. “There are two ways for a person to look for adventure,” said the Lone Ranger, an old TV character. “By tearing everything down, or building everything up.” Give an example of each from your own life.
13. To many people, “sacrifice” is a demoralizing word that connotes deprivation. Is that how you feel? Do you make sacrifices because you’re forced to, or maybe because your generosity prompts you to incur a loss in order to further a good cause?
Originally, “sacrifice” had a different meaning: to give up something valuable in order that something even more valuable might be obtained. Carry out an action that embodies this definition. For instance, sacrifice a mediocre pleasure so as to free yourself to pursue a more exalted pleasure.
14. What is the holiest river in the world? Some might say the Ganges in India. Others would propose the Jordan River or the River Nile. But I say the holiest river is the one that’s closest to where you are right now.
Go to that river and commune with it. Throw a small treasure into it as an offering. Next, find a holy sidewalk to walk on, praise the holiness in a bus driver, kiss a holy tree, and shop at a holy store.
15. Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it. His book The Luck Factor presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It’s not a mystical force you’re born with, he says, but a habit you can develop.
How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.
Name three specific actions you’ll try in order to improve your luck.
16. Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt drew up an index to categorize the discomfort caused by stinging insects. The attack of the bald-faced hornet is “rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.” A paper wasp delivers pain that’s “caustic and burning,” with a “distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.” The sweat bee, on the other hand, can hurt you in a way that’s “light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.”
In bringing this to your attention, I want to inspire the pronoiac rebel in you. Your homework is to create an equally nuanced and precise index of three experiences that feel really good.
17. Some scholars believe the original Garden of Eden was where Iraq stands today. Though remnants of that ancient paradise survived into modern times, many were obliterated during the American war on Iraq. A Beauty and Truth Lab researcher who lives near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers kept us posted on the fate of the most famous remnant: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Until the invasion, it was a gnarled stump near Nasiriyah. But today it’s gone; only a crater remains.
Let this serve as an evocative symbol for you as you demolish your old ideas about paradise, freeing you up to conjure a fresh vision of your ideal realm.
18. “Two chemicals called actin and myosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and relax,” writes Deepak Chopra in The Book of Secrets. “Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart.”
If you use your imagination, you can sense the connection between the flight of a dragonfly and the intelligent organ that renews its commitment to keeping you alive every second of your life. So use your imagination.
19. Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness? Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier?
Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true.
Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you.
20. The primary meaning of the word “healing” is “to cure what’s diseased or broken.” Medical practitioners focus on sick people. Philanthropists donate their money and social workers contribute their time to helping the underprivileged. Psychotherapists wrestle with their clients’ traumas and neuroses.
I’m in awe of them all. The level of one’s spiritual wisdom, I believe, is more accurately measured by helping people in need than by meditation skills, shamanic shapeshifting, supernatural powers, or esoteric knowledge.
But I also believe in a second kind of healing that is largely unrecognized: to supercharge what is already healthy; to lift up what’s merely sufficient to a sublime state. Using this definition, describe two acts of healing: one you would enjoy performing on yourself and another you’d like to provide for someone you love.
P.S. What would the world look like if there were doctors who specialized in fostering robust health in their patients? What if the textbooks that psychotherapists used to evaluate their clients were crammed not just with descriptions of pathological states, but also with a catalogue of every variety of bliss, integrity, magnanimity, eros, and wisdom? Imagine how odd and wonderful it would be if universities began turning out professionals in a brand new field, the science of happiness.
21. Those who explore pronoia often find they have a growing capacity to help people laugh at themselves. While few arbiters of morality recognize this skill as a mark of high character, I put it near the top of my list. In my view, inducing people to take themselves less seriously is a supreme virtue. Do you have any interest in cultivating it? How might you go about it?
22 “Creativity is like driving a car at night,” said E. L. Doctorow. “You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I would add that life itself is like driving a car at night. You’re often in the dark except for what’s right in front of you. At least that’s usually the case.
But for a few shining hours sometime soon, I predict you’ll be able to see the big picture of where you’re headed. It will be as if the whole world is suddenly illuminated by a prolonged burst of light; as if you’re both driving your car and also watching your journey from high above. Write about what you see.
Jai’s first haircut
Jai’s little curls are growing in in the back of her head, so I cut
off the frizzy stuff that was too damaged from pre-sitting to fix. I
love the new haircut!!! It’s kinda short in the back, but her little
curls are so obvious now and will really thrive! :) The top is still
long and silky-curly, and now the back can match! :))
Skateboard Park Last Week
The kids had a blast at our local skateboard park last week. It was
almost empty, so they went down into the tubes — including Noble!! He
had such a blast :))
Weapons
These are our new fun :)) Fun to make, fun to use :)) And easy and
cheap to make, which is a sweet treat :)
Celebrate What’s Right with the World
This is an amazing video by Dewitt Jones – National Geographic
Photographer and Inspirational Speaker
Dewitt Jones offers inspirational programs. Here is a quote from one of them :)
Everyday Creativity teaches a surprising truth about creativity: that it’s not a magical, mysterious occurrence, but a ready tool that enables you to look at the ordinary and see the extraordinary.
You can see more about this program and his others here:
http://www.everydaycreativityfilm.com/
Buddha Quotes
All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone, everything is in relation to everything else.
All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?
He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike, each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.
In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west. People create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.
Anxiety
So, I have been having some back-and-forth emails with my newly pregnant sister about birth stuff, and she mentions that she thinks I have anxiety (long story about how we went from pregnancy stuff to this — lol). At first I brush it off. I mean, I have seen people with anxiety, and I don’t do that! Then she shares with me how it comes out in my dad and herself, and it clicks!!! Oh, you mean that restless feeling inside of me like I need to stay busy and keep moving at 150 miles per hour because I am scared to just sit and be? Oh, that feeling?! So, since she mentioned this last night, I have been really sitting with this. Once I started to really tap into it and how far-reaching it is in my life, I am amazed. So much of my life has been lived and choices made from this place of static on my frequency. It is my mental hyperactivity, and my impatience to wait on something when I have an idea or start a project, and why I talk AT people instead of WITH them, and why I am petrified of connecting with new people and of conflict. This list could go on and on, but I will save you the details :)) So, I have been thinking of the causes or where it may stem from… LOTS of discomfort in my childhood, transitions that left me jarred, probably learned from my parents, too, since they both have classic reasons to have it also). And I have been noticing today how I have passed this on to my kids: Kass is a bit crazy with anxiety, with all that she has experienced and with hormones swelling up. Even Noble has some minor stuff. And poor Jai is gonna develop it if I keep trying to hand her an interesting toy and sneek off to clean something (where she freaks out once she realizes I have left). Not saying that some anxiety isn’t completely appropriate or even healthy (like stress) — in fact, I think that it is a signal. When I feel it swelling up in my chest, I ask myself what’s going on, what is this trying to tell me?
The funny part about this is that I had heard within the last few months that depression is usually coupled with anxiety, and it made sense to me, so I was trying to find where I might have anxiety in my life, but I couldn’t find it. Like a fish wondering where water is, I think. And when my sister gave that example of my dad being nervous and just talking and talking, it just became clear to me. I have really enjoyed being able to pick it out in my life, enjoyed having this lens to see things from differently now :) I feel like I understand so much from my childhood now (like my step mom and my mom both saying I was hyperactive upon returning from the other’s care and why I developed an eating disorder while at my dad’s house. So much…
So, I wanted to share this here with you all, because you may have noticed this about me or seen it impact my relationship with people. Also, I wanted to share what I have decided to do about it. First off all, I am going to hug that little girl inside me Everytime I feel it, who developed anxiety as a way of coping when no one would just hug her and tell her it will all be okay, that they will stay right there with her until it is all okay. I am going to see it as a signal that I need some assurance and love. I am going to try to just BE more often — less channeling of that mental and emotional hyperactive and less running for the next distraction, more sitting and feeling what is coming up for me and for my kids, more relaxing, more breathing and meditating. I can do a lot — it’s doing a little that is challenging for me. I asked myself what I felt like was the opposite of this anxiety (or whatever label fits this restless feeling I get), and I decidedon relaxed and easy-going, so I’m going to put the Law of Attraction into place and embody the chillaxed, carefree, bohemian mama I want so badly to be. Fuck stressing over the messes.
Oh, and one other big part of this for me. A HUGE aspect of this anxiety was feeling judged by people. Well, I pulled some other stuff into this context and realized that those judgments I thought I was feeling from others was my own insecurities about my life. Anything I could possibly want from other people (acceptance, stop trying to fix me or even seeing me as needingto be fixed, etc.), really I needed to give them to myself. People just pick up on my vibes, and if I am all wacky, they are going to feel that I am wacky! And it’s fine to be wacky — it’s just not who I want to be or who I want people to see me as. So, back to this alignment with that deeper self that I have been talking about… When I calm the static on my frequency and align deeply with the vibration I want to be on and eminate, I see people see and feel it. THAT is who I want to be :)
Where the Wild Things Are
The book: I loved the concept, except the chasing the dog and the punitive parenting part of sending the boy off without dinner. I still read it with my son and trusted that he was taking what he wanted from it or he wouldn’t be asking me to read it over and over. Besides, who could resist such awesome art!!! I had lots of childhood attachments to it, so I was sad to see those areas of discomfort (mentioned earlier) for me. The movie: omg, I LOVED the cinematography, the costumes, the actors, the acting, the soundtrack (listening to it as we speak — my inspiration to write this blog), the symbolism from the original book — just amazing. There was a lot of exciting wildness in it!! Lots of fun ideas to play with and explore more. My biggest concern with the movie is something that I see reflected in a greater understanding: that “wild” inevitably leads to what I understood as dysfunction. Yes, wild is messy and can be hurtful, physically and emotionally, but I feel like there is so much wonderful stuff that comes from living free that was not touched upon in the movie. One of my favorite things to do is think of how I would do things differently given the chance (an opportunity for critical thinking and how I love tailoring and personalizing my life), and it is full of opportunities for that, which is why I am writing this. For the record, I was sharing about this with Kassidy yesterday, and I said I felt like the dysfunction in the wild things was a reflection of the dysfunction in Max’s life at that point. Figured I would toss that out, for what it’s worth :)) I want to play with lots of ideas about being wild and develop my own understanding of it and how it feels before I read the book “Women Who Run With Wolves”. I have picked up on bits from my life and from my educational background in psychology that leave me with the feeling that wild and free is healing and naturally organizing. It’s kinda the opposite of dysfunction. And it is one big reason I chose and love witnessing unschooling. Not all unshoolers are so passionate about being wild, about raising ferrel and uncaged and free-roaming kids. I am passionate about witnessing my kids being true to themselves in their own right and refining things as they see fit. Sometimes it is messy, and I can find myself unpacking stuff from my past through the experiences, and it is all perfect, and I love every moment of it :)
All I See Is Me
April 2010:
Lots to think about there, as I explore different meanings and peel back layers.
When I said it, I meant all of life that I notice is a reflection of something inside of me. Then I started understanding it as my quest of self. Sooooo interesting to me :)
In this quest of self, I have recently decided that in order to see life from me, I am going to let go of seeing me or life from other’s perspectives. I have been so distracted from my own narrow path by trying to keep it broad, and I want to focus in forthe time being. And I am going to stop worrying about seeing me from another’s perspective and just focus on seeing me from my perspective. I know that what others are seeing about me are reflections of them, anyway. I want to focus on me — talk about healing!!! I am so excited about this!!! I have been SO self-conscious for too long, this is going to feel amazing! The best part is that I think it is going to lead to my outside aligning with my inside — or maybe just my ability to see that it already does. It is going to be so liberating to just be without worrying what it looks like — like my broken-tooth smile, and juggley body bouncing as I run or dance or wave my arms like a wild person whilst playing with my son, or whatever. I don’t feel like that person, and I think not stressing over that person will make them disappear — law of attraction, right?
Today, while I was playing with my son at the park, I had this ah-ha moment about being able to FEEL when I wasn’t focused outward. I was very clearly tuned in to my body — how I feel when I eat watermelon and spinach, as opposed to cupcakes. It was an awesome moment that I look forward to finding more of in life :)
Wild Sacred Soul 