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I’ve always wanted to try needle felting, so for Christmas, we bought the girls a Valentine themed needle felting kit from Nova Natural. We had great fun. I’m definitely getting some more of the kits and individual supplies. It is a good activity we can do and learn together. Even Daddy got in on the fun a little. 🙂
Deladis working on a cover for her Valentine box. Single needle felting.
A piece I made for a friend’s birthday.
I’m excited to do more.
This week John and I are both working at the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School. I am co-teaching Kids on the Creek, and John is the faculty coordinator. Both of the girls are attending this year, and are with me in Kids on the Creek. It’s a busy and exhausting week. So many personalities in one place, lots of music and dancing, smiling, and fun. It is in its 9th year.
It seems though that our family always has a bit of a crisis during the time of the music school. Last year it was our van breaking down. This year, it is the dogs killing the diddles (chicks). They have killed two, and yesterday, we realized that we had to get the mama and the remaining seven into the old coop for safety. They have been totally free ranging since they were born. We hadn’t been able to touch their mother since she left the coop months ago. I figured I’d have to have John to help me catch all of them. In fact, I wasn’t even going to try without him. His duties keep him at the school from morning until wee morning, and we see him in glimpses. I had resigned to grieve the diddles and resent the dogs.
Deladis on the other hand, resigned to get the chickens into the coop come hell or high water last night. After a thunderstorm that knocked the power out, Deladis chased the diddles all around the yard in the steady rain. Ivy was asleep inside. When I stepped onto the front porch to check on Deladis, I realized she was catching them! She had a diddle in her hands. She handed it off to me and I rushed it to the coop. When I returned, she handed me another diddle. “Get the mama,” I said.
They were all huddled under the front porch, and it takes quite a bit for me to maneuver under there, so I wasn’t too hopeful that Deladis could get her hands on the mama, but I knew that if she were caught, the diddles would be easier. “Oh, she’s pecking me!” I hear. Then, I see my four year old turn around, her arms full of hen. “Hang on!” I say. We rush her to the coop, and proceed to round up the last five diddles.
The proud look on her face said it all. Her eyes round and wide. Her smile open and full. “I did it, Mama,” she said. “Are you happy at me?” She was determined to get those chickens to safety with or without her daddy, and that she did. I was beyond joyful at her accomplishment. She did something I thought wasn’t doable. Something I thought it would take our man to help us with. Deladis taught me something last night.
What/Who am I waiting on? I have been waiting on John to have time for barn repairs for months, so we could move the chickens down there once again. I have been working so hard on advertising my birth work that I have neglected my housekeeping and writing. I have been waiting on acceptance to a known literary journal before sending off the collection of stories to small presses for consideration. I’ve been submitting those stories for two years. I have 25,000 words on a novel that I am waiting for time to finish. There’s no waiting. There is just now. Now. Right now. There is nothing that exists to wait for. All that is, is present now.
Miss Angie, over at The Artist, The Mom, and mine and Deladis’s former Parent/Child (Waldorf) teacher told me once that I was exhibiting some sanguine traits. At the time I thought – no way. But, I couldn’t just put it off. She had really studied the temperaments after all. She gave us an article on parenting and temperaments. I thought – sure, I’ll accept melancholic, even choleric, but sanguine? I had always thought, if only I had some sanguine tendencies. I am not the life of the party by any means. I’m lucky if I can approach you for conversation after knowing you for some time. I’m one of those who gets shy and ducks in and out of store aisles trying to avoid eye contact. Not because I don’t love conversation, or crave it even, but when I’m not prepared for it, it is very hard for me to initiate. I want to be assured that someone wants to talk to me before I approach them. I also remember things, and have been notoriously good and holding grudges (though not any more. What a blessing!). I have strong opinions about a lot of things, but I don’t go declaring most of them everywhere, and in most situations my opinions aren’t such that it makes me dislike anyone or confront anyone.
However, I see what she means in that I have my hands in so much at once. My focus changes so often, I don’t think I give anything time to really be what it is going to be. Just go through this blog and you will see that I have this and that then that and this on my mind. Does it mean that I need to find just one thing? Does it mean that I need to give up my little work for the important work of mother and homemaker, so I can do those better than I am now? I don’t think so. I really don’t.
I think it just means that I need to focus on what needs to be done in any given day. What work do I wake to? What work lends itself well to the feelings of the day – mine and the girls? Does it mean that I will take the conventional approach to things? No, I’ve never been conventional. Does it mean that the path I had set out on will be the one that gets me to where I am going? Nope. In fact, I think it is most doubtful. I need to always consider alternatives. Always consider now.
I wonder if I can do the work down at the barn. I wonder. I wonder how much time and advertising to put into my birth work. I wonder which small press I should query first. I wonder what it will be like to pick up my novel again. I’ve been wanting to switch this blog over to one that will allow me to do the Amazon Affiliates program, and post links to my book when it is published by a small press or myself. I wonder if I’m computer literate enough. I wonder. Deladis didn’t sit and wonder. She just did it because it needed done.
I’m not a poet, but this day is poetry.
Releasing bonds and feeling myself in the space I’ve been led to take.
My mind churned all night from happiness.
Today, I woke to warmth and joy filled little girls.
Walks to the barn, marveling at such tiny little hens,
Songs, rhymes, small peat pot green houses and quick sprouting seeds;
Digging in the dark winter full dirt,
Swinging feels like flying.
Mommy can still hang upside down from bent knees, climb a tree and feel it grasp me back, enjoy wind in my hair, relax in height, and allow the Fix-It-Up-Chappy to make me a star bellied Sneetch.
We rest with smiles and the relief that seasons bring.
Adding my new work to our daily schedule is already changing things up quite a bit. Not in a bad way though. I feel myself relaxing about things that worried me so much before, things that I took way to seriously. Sure, it has only been two days since the end of my training workshop and I am still riding that wave of pure joy, but the relaxation is very real.
I don’t know why. I suspect it is because I am finally paying attention to where my heart has been leading me for years. Not just the childbirth education, but actually listening to that part of me that has said, you’d really enjoy _____. Listening to that part of me instead of making decisions based on some “dream” idea of what our family life should look like, what makes a great parent, or how a grown woman can give to her community and children. What makes one a productive, satisfied individual? It definitely isn’t trying to adhere to someone else’s prescription of that idea. So far, I’m finding that giving in and listening to what your heart says, doing the leg work for yourself, is much more satisfying. No, it’s not going to look anything like what other people have found satisfying. We are all gifted differently. We are all unique, so it shouldn’t.
Yes, we may get ideas from one another. Of course, if something speaks to us, but is challenging, we should give it our best effort and time to see if it is something that is beneficial for us. But, if we are attempting something for our benefit and thus that of our family, and it is doing nothing but bringing discontentment, it is probably not a fit. There can be great satisfaction in a challenge and hard work, so I am learning to look for that satisfaction. For example, doing an hour of yoga everyday is a huge challenge. Finding the time for it in my day, trying to relax despite the bustle around me, and listening for that still small voice is anything but easy. Yet, while practicing, I feel satisfied. I feel like I have done something important, and in turn I feel happy for it. That is how you know that an idea is a good one. The work it takes isn’t always easy, but you continually have the feeling that it is right.
This morning, Deladis started drawing bodies on her figures and animals. Heaven on Earth by Sharifa Oppenheimer suggests that this is one of the first signs for academic readiness. However, for most children this won’t occur until around age 6 or 7. I watched Deladis’ glee as she showed her new accomplishment to her artist daddy, who in turn looks at me and says that his daughter is a genius. 🙂 I smile and think that it’s cute that Daddy gives such esteem to his little one. Then, Deladis looks at me and says, “This little girl cat is beautiful and this boy one is handsome.” Her mommy who thinks in words couldn’t help but be amazed and think maybe her daddy is really onto something. Does it mean she is ready for academics? I’m doubtful. Do I ignore this sign? Absolutely not. The recommendation for Waldorf education is no formal academics until age 6 or 7. Is that a strict rule to be adhered to in homeschool families? I don’t think so. I think it is something to deeply consider. I’m going to spend many weeks, perhaps months watching her cues… seeing where she leads me, and listening to my heart.
Our lives are changing. The road for me has been rocky, but some lessons are hard learned and should be. I’m glad for it. I’m really glad.
Please bear with me as I try to figure out what place this blog will have in my new schedule. I am going to try to still post regularly, but I am almost certain that things will change here a little bit as I am devoting time to different things. I hope you will continue to check back in and share your thoughts here.
In my twenties, I didn’t think much about self improvement. I would have laughed at anyone suggesting a self-help book. I read little on spirituality, and honestly didn’t have a clue where I fit in. I figured I was who I was by that time and I had to learn to endure the faults, the neurosis, and the walls that I had built for myself. What I did dwell on were the negative parts of my childhood. I couldn’t seem to move passed them, and I felt like I would need to muster all the strength I could to move on down the line. I also clung to the good parts of my childhood. They stuck to me – bittersweet, moments of bliss that were only to be glanced at here and there.
After becoming pregnant with Deladis, I realized that life was much more than existing in a past you can’t change. I realized that there were things I didn’t want to pass on to my daughter. Things that can be excused in families. All ___ (insert family name) are mule headed. Oh, you get that temper from your Uncle ___. You’re always depressed, just like your ____. Things that are chalked up as inherited personality traits, that can very well be negative if given the right circumstances, but given a different environment can be worked with and made into positives. Instead of saying, that’s who I am, it’s in the blood, we can work to stop the scars that are passed down through generations in families. Those scars don’t have to be a curse. The fact is, you don’t have to live with them anymore the moment you choose to see them for what they are and no longer choose to accept them. Not that it isn’t hard work through them, but acknowledgment that there is no power there to hold you.
I didn’t completely understand my great desire to become a better me after becoming a parent. I would catch little thoughts as they passed through my mind that would hint at why. If you keep losing your cool, your relationship with your child will erode. Do you ever want her to wonder if she is loved? Then, there is the whole aspect of parenting daughters as a woman. Stop downing your physical appearance in front of your child. You don’t want her to spend her whole adolescence thinking she is an ugly duckling or not feminine because she doesn’t like makeup or spending too much time on her hair.
Eli, The Good the most recent novel by the eastern Kentucky author Silas House came out in September 2009. My grandmother went to North Carolina to hear him read and to buy me a signed copy of the book. I thought that pretty dang cool of her considering she was supporting an independent bookstore and she was buying me the best kind of material present I could ever receive. Silas House is my very favorite author.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect of this novel. I had heard him read an excerpt at the Hindman Settlement School’s Appalachian Writer’s Workshop evening readings over the summer. I appreciated the segment he read. I soaked in the frankness of the tone and took up the imagery, making a movie in my mind, as the best books do for me. I relished in his audible voice, true to his accent and unapologetic. The kind that makes you even more proud to be who you are because someone molded from the same clay as you is making a difference in the world. I was ready for this book.
I opened it and began reading, noticing immediately that this novel was very different from his first three (a series with the same family as characters). It was different in feeling and much different in tone. It was told from the voice of a ten year old child, Eli Book. While the setting was obviously the mountains, it was more universal. It felt like it could be many places. Immediately, I felt like that child could have been me.
I went through the first half of the book wondering where it was taking me. I didn’t grasp it fully because at times it was a very uncomfortable place to be, but as I moved onward I understood that was exactly the point.
By the end of the novel, I felt like I had been on a life transforming journey. The kind that is a one way ticket. You go from beginning to end and never look back. The end of the novel held the juice for me. Eli’s father dealt with demons brought back from the Vietnam war. A war he had gone to fight still being only a child. Eli’s mother clung to the love she found with his father because she had not known love as a child. There was Eli and his sister both feeling the very same way, but coming to the understanding that what they were feeling was not the reality of their life, but the feelings that their parents were carrying with them and projecting out onto their lives.
But then he saw me. I just stood there, feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness wash over me. I had felt alone all my life, had felt as if my parents only saw each other as they moved through the world, thought they loved each other so much that there was no room to love me. But now, by the way Daddy looked at me, I knew better.
His faced is what convinced me. He was so hurt to see me there, to know I had seen all of this. So I knew, once and for all, that he did care if I existed or not.
– Eli, The Good by Silas House, Chapter 25, pg. 265
It was that moment in the book that sealed the deal for me and my commitment to becoming my true self. The self that is uninhibited by my circumstances or past. This was the point that gave me hope. The hope that despite my shortcomings and my personal pitfalls, my children will at some point be assured of the fact that I love them and I love having been a part of giving them life. They will know it because it is true.
All the things that I am doing are not only for myself at this point, though I believe looking inward is important for people in all walks of life. It is for my family. From the choice of Waldorf inspired education, to moving up in the head of no where, to making our traditional culture a daily part of our life, those choices were made to help my children experience childhood. We can grow up so quickly. My spiritual studies, my yoga practice, my writing and reading, making the choice to become a childbirth educator, are all part of ending a cycle and embracing my natural state of well being. Disease is not our natural state. It is dis-ease. Feelings of inadequacy, depletion, and blaming are not natural. These are things that can be healed. These are things that with mindfulness can be made whole in beautiful ways.
I want to bring my children up in a healing environment. I want to do all I can to insure that I leave little baggage for them to carry into their adult life. Any baggage they will have will be theirs, personal and part of that which helps us become independent of our parents. It will be the stuffs of a beautiful life and the tools to make it a complete one.
We were blessed with a sunny day and warm enough weather to get outside and enjoy it. Enjoy it we did!
We walked down to the barn, fed the chickens, and walked back to home. As soon as we made it to the yard, Deladis said, “We can swing!”
Then, we walked on up the holler passed our house to my favorite spot in the little valley.
After seeing the emptiness of this valley thanks to Google Earth, I plan to thoroughly explore it with the girls.
Deladis is learning about the root and seed children that spend their time sleeping snug inside Mother Earth through the Winter. We couldn’t help but notice many of the mosses and lichens have awesome blooms of red and yellow, or simply the brightest green.
Even our animal friends got in on the warmth.
Our dog, Lars, is a bird whisperer. Have I mentioned they will lie next to him?
Lately, Deladis has been really in to AbbeyRoad by The Beatles. John has our CDs with him most of the time, so we listen to the record collection. John’s dad gave us his records and Abbey Road was one of them. Deladis has Brer Rabbit, Fat Albert, and Chipmunk Punk, but Abbey Road trumps those every time. Deladis’ favorites are “Come Together,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Something,” and “Her Majesty”(the one about Madge being a really fine girl – I think that is the title). I won’t forget the day she told me she liked “Something”. She asked me what kind of song that was and what was it about. George Harrison moved my four year old. She’s a thinking girl.
We sang sunshine songs as we walked. “Here Comes the Sun” was included of course as it is on most days of our singing. As well as “The Sun Shines on Everyone” by Snatam Kaur, and “You Are My Sunshine”, which Ivy has learned to sing really well thanks to her new auntie. 🙂
It was a fine and refreshing time.
I am broken-hearted about the situation in Haiti. I am concerned for all the people there, especially the children and elderly. It has been on my mind quite a bit from wondering how someone like Pat Robertson could feel justified in making the embarrassing comments he has made, to hoping for peace for them, to wondering how a mother like myself could help. Today, I saw one mother’s solution to that wondering and wanted to share it with you. Shivaya Naturals has reopened her Etsy store with 100% of the proceeds going to Haiti relief. Please visit there today if you are able and contribute. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haitians and those around the globe helping to meet their needs.
I have had Deladis on my mind quite a bit lately. Her reactions to it being a “school” day, her temper with me and hitting, and whether or not she should be watching television and how much. I think about when she was a baby and the two of us would traipse all over Louisville (well, the familiar parts ;)) going to parks, play dates, Gymboree Play and Music, and Waldorf Parent/Child. Her favorite place to eat was Whole Foods and she would clean her plate. We would laugh and play games. I didn’t raise my voice at her. We had a wonderful time. Motherhood was still new and I was consumed enough to be meticulous about so many things.
Recently, I posted to a Waldorf Homeschool Support Group about Deladis losing heart with our schooling. As Ivy grows more able to participate in our Circle Time and enjoys the activity, Deladis seems to be losing interest. In the past, I have tried to eliminate television completely from her world until she is older, but since moving home, that is a lot harder to do. Our family enjoys TV, and so do John and I. We don’t have cable here at the cabin. In fact, John and I have only had cable 6 months in ten years of marriage, but we do enjoy movies, documentaries, PBS, and certain TV shows, and we subscribe to Netflix.
In the last months, I have limited television viewing to weekends. A few weeks ago, Deladis started asking me if it was a school day or a watching day. When I would tell her it was a school day, she would become disappointed and not participate well in our activities. I, then, decided that there should be no difference in school days and weekends, and since our TV would remain in the home, she could have one program a day during the time in the evening when I cook supper (when the girls are not at their best).
I posted to the support group wondering what to do about Deladis’ seeming non-interest in singing, or reciting verse or fingerplays with me and I called her downhearted. The truth is I was projecting my feelings onto her. I have been disheartened that my attempts at a Waldorf home for my family has not worked out as I had envisioned. My home is not TV free. It is not simple and tidy. Deladis’ favorite toys of late is Littlest Petshop and she spends hours in imaginative play with those, so I have allowed them to be bought for her this Christmas. The truth is, I don’t know where we fit in the big picture of the world of Waldorf.
I know Waldorf education works. I will never forget when we toured the Waldorf School of Louisville and I found myself teary eyed passing through each classroom and seeing all the beautiful, safe, and pure learning going on in each of them. The clincher was walking into the fourth grade classroom seeing a room of engaged students reading from a chalkboard the most beautiful cursive handwriting without missing a beat. They were learning the fundamentals that so many students coming through our public schools today miss, as they vie for teacher’s attention and fumble their way through computer games and busywork. (Please don’t take this the wrong way. I was a public school teacher, my great grandmother was a public school teacher, my grandmother worked for the Board of Education and was a substitute teacher at times, and I have many friends in the world of public education. I believe it is the environment that government run schools have created for students that are the disservice.)
I was reminded of the stories of my great grandmother and grandfather (Golda and Luther Johnson) and their school days – plain, simple, and fun. I compared it to my daily experience in the public school system as both a student and a teacher, and knew I had to bring the Waldorf educational environment to my children. If I could not send them to a Waldorf School, I had to bring it to them.
At this point, I am unsure of what is next for our little home “school”. I am dedicated to Waldorf philosophy and I am going to be diligent about coming to a better understanding of it. But more, I want to find how it will fit into our family. Each family is unique and has its own special culture. We are individual and I believe that is what is wonderful about homeschool. The educational experience can be just as unique as we are. I can still be within Waldorf educational philosophy and not look like the Waldorf of other families. This blog has given me hope of that.
The great thing is, I have two more years before I need to start academics with Deladis. So, technically, I’m not schooling yet. In the meantime, I’m going to explore this further. I’m going to read some Rudolph Steiner, take some free online workshops, and keep reading the many great Waldorf inspired blogs out there. I’ll get it figured out. But, most importantly I need to reconnect with Deladis. I need to make some time for just me and her. I need to observe her, meditate on her, and meet her needs.
Some of my favorite Waldorf inspired blogs:
Enjoy!
The break in the weather today was nice. Really nice. The truck is stuck in the creek because of all the ice and us trying to get it out before John took another short trip. Today, it almost reached fifty degrees and I got to come home from my mother’s, where I’ve been staying for lack of ability to leave the holler in an emergency.
I like being cold much more than being hot, and I wonder sometimes if it is part in partial to my being a bit of an introvert. Winter makes us go inward. The bustle is not so much and it forces us to spend more time with ourselves. We renew and we make big plans. We resolve to do and be things. We get really excited and then frustrated because we suddenly have lots of things we want to be doing and the weather doesn’t allow for us to do them. We grow tired of inner conversation. Then, we get stir crazy. Then, it is Spring.
I enjoy the little breaks in the weather of Winter that gives you a moment to exhale, to take a fresher deep breath and begin again. I am enjoying my time this Winter, and I hope the feelings I have gained are ones that I will never lose. I hope to only grow in them and to go forward with the change they bring.
I have some simple things I will be focusing on this year. Things that will change my life, my being, my heart, my work, and my basic approach to life. Hey, it’s about time. 🙂
- I’m going to complete my childbirth educator training and classes with Lamaze International beginning in February. I will become a certified childbirth educator and begin helping the women of my region take a look at all the possibilities and miracles of birth. I will also become trained to teach prenatal yoga in April and tie that into my work as a childbirth educator.
- I will be reading the writing of Rudolph Steiner. I want to learn about the Waldorf philosophy of education directly from the source and take what I learn to create the experience of education for our girls. Lately, I’m too caught up in “being” Waldorf as in the examples from the many blogs, books, classes, and things that are Waldorf inspired. The real “Waldorf” education will be the experience that works and fits with our own family culture. It won’t look the same as what works for others.
- I am learning more about Spirituality. I am exploring my beliefs and trying to learn all I can about living a life that is tuned in, out, and grounded. 😉
- Continue to practice Kundalini Yoga and to learn all I can about it. This will also help me with number three.
- Finish my novel and continue to look for publication for my stories.
It feels good because it is nothing unrealistic like keeping the house in perfect order, or making sure the girls never get their feelings hurt. 😉 It is life in simple. I’m so excited, I’m smiling as I type.
Photos by Brett Marshall
A Mountain Mama - East Kentucky Gal 