Tag: books

Next Truth

They did not feel they could choose what they wanted, independent of circumstances. … it always seems that circumstances are powerful- more powerful than you are. You feel that all you can do is react or respond to them. Even if you have developed great skill in outmaneuvering circumstances, like a lion tamer outmaneuvering the lions, it is still the circumstances- the lions- that hold the ultimate control in how you live you life. -Robert Fritz

 

This has been the way i have lived life, for most of my life.  My first considerable circumstance that defined how i would move was my first child.  In trying to choose the best life for her, I married her father and began creating the story. I wish i could say with Truth that it was out of a deep love, for him, but i can’t, it was out of a deep love for her. And i knew this at the time, even at twenty. I stayed quiet, silenced the voice within and did what needed to be done to ready myself for the making of a family. I pretended that it was all that mattered. Believing that there was enough love to make it look as though it was always going to be part of the plan. But it hadn’t been my plan, it caught me by surprise and i reacted. This story played out for seven years in all the usual ways, and for the most part i was content with all the distraction children brought. I was abundant in the circumstances surrounding the way i was moving through life and avoiding my truth. It simply was just too much to allow to rise to the surface in this story. We do that as mothers, leave ourselves behind or worse in the dark to keep the story going. And we usually think we do this well, but it’s never really far away, and life has this divine way of always bringing to you what truths you are needing to see at the time.  And when my husband decided to leave one day, i remember i felt terrified and relieved in the same breath. Terrified at the idea of caring for three young children on my own and relieved that he had found the courage to leave, something i would silently be eternally grateful to him for. I’m no longer living this way, allowing the circumstances of my life to define my life. I’m moving from a different part of myself now, the one where the answer isn’t always clear right away but you know it’s there and you know that it will be revealed as its meant to, so your content in the waiting. The strength i learned about myself during this time,  has carried me forward. It’s what brought me through the chapters that followed to where I’m standing now. It’s whats giving me the courage to stand strong in my truth, in the midst of this chapter. And with all resistance that comes up against it, I’m thankful to them for they are the continuum of reminders on how i need to be ever so mindful of my Truth.

leaning towards un-schooling

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I’m excited about my children’s education for the first time. After spending too many years on opposite sides of the bench with the school system and the education of my older children, it’s a much welcomed relief and an exciting new prospect for us. For the past 2 years i have been endlessly searching for alternative schooling approaches to educate my children that differ from the mainstream system that we so often seem to be hauling our children through. Homeschooling or better still un-schooling has gotten my eager attention. It’s not the conventional way to go, or even the most popular form for alternative ways to educate your children, nevertheless something is swiftly moving us in that direction. And really after having already been down the conventional schooling road before, i’m afraid it leaves little to be desired for at this stage. After researching the array of approaches to begin embarking on the homeschooling journey, it became apparent and with a much welcomed relief that we were already innately flowing to this rhythm of learning. And whist it may seem alternative now, my predicament is, as a society facing the enormities of such neurological diversity we will begin to explore these new learning styles more predominately in the future anyway. Right now, everything we are doing feels right. Moving in the natural flow of the children is easy, much easier than the rush of meeting expected time tables and fitting into a routine that doesn’t really fit with us. Now, we move slowly in the mornings, especially on the stuff that doesn’t really matter, like washing faces and getting dressed. The creativity usually begins before the first cup of tea. Everything is always open, accessible and available, nothing stops or finishes at a certain time.  I know the learning is happening when they wake and look out to see if anything has grown in the garden or changed form while they were sleeping. They notice a bee has taken up residence in the lounge room and they are unbothered by its presence, ensuring me that its alright, because it’s just pollinating our plants. Painting in your pyjamas is normal, brushing teeth at some stage before lunch is alright, imaginary play is unrestrained and  not restricted to any parts of the house, and can take over and last for hours. I can’t emphasis enough how important this kind of play is and how important it is to allow the space in children’s lives for this to happen naturally. We live in a world that is on sensory overload most of the time. Children are losing their way, forgetting how to be without the aid of an electronic device, clouding their minds. I’m seeing it so often now, children are struggling to think of ways to play. They have forgotten this innate wisdom they have been born with and its disturbingly heartbreaking.  Playing this way for us happens often and easily, they listen to each other, contemplate and cooperate together, most of the time my involvement is unnecessary and is kept to a minimal.  The children are happy, excited to wake in the morning and begin their days, they know that they have the unique experience of leading the way on how the day will unfold and its alluring to watch them in the freedom of this space.  It would be hard to imagine now,  a life of rushing them out the door by eight with breakfast on the run to spend 6 hours in a classroom, five days a week.  I’m thinking we have stumbled onto something uniquely wonderful here, un-schooling is undoubtably unorthodox and still really quite seldom, nonetheless we do like the idea of taking the road less travelled.

 

child-led learning

IMG_6488 IMG_6489 IMG_6486It takes courage to follow your own innate wisdom’s, especially when it concerns more lives than just that of your own.  I have always followed the mantra, when you know better, you do better. I am watching carefully how my children are learning, even how other children i am around are learning also, by simply observing, allowing, and encouraging a child-led process to unfold. This area in my children’s development has become a necessary pursuit and now a passion. When developmental  learning for a child doesn’t play by the generalised rules, it becomes necessary to begin the journey of discovering new ways for the information to be grasped, finding a way for the learning to happen. Our way has come to us on an instinctual level, i simply allow my children to lead the way in their learning,  most of the time and almost every day. It may seem unlikely that we could possibly be covering all the developmental learning targets with children taking the lead however, if we are able to get out of our own way of old views on how things must be done in order to achieve results, we open up a new space of possibility for things to unfold. And children are born knowing what they want and need already.  We know this to be true from babies who cry to have their instinctual needs met.  Nobody teaches a new born how to be hungry every few hours or how to be tired, or how to feel uncomfortable.  We trust babies to tell us what they need, to eventually get their needs met, even without the use of spoken language.  So why is it that we stop trusting them, stop trusting that they instinctively know what it is they are wanting to learn, wanting to know more about?  Maybe it started around the time the first three-year olds began contradicting their parents?  A mass collaborative decision to get things under control before an ensue of outspoken three-year olds possibly unraveled?  What would happen if we continued to trust them, kept them safe and allowed them to lead the direction of what it is they want to know more about. All children are curious we know this to be true. Usually about absolutely everything. This innate curiosity starts to take a certain shape and head in certain directions as they grow. I watched a small boy yesterday, load his 4-year-old arms up with off cuts of wood and lug them down to another part of the play area where he was building.  He continued this process of going back and forth, carrying the wood to his construction site with immense importance and determination. He lay the wood pieces in parquetry style, perfectly creating  a flat image of a house plan from his imagination. What was remarkable to me was that he was constructing this project in amongst a highly distracting group of twenty or so four-year olds. I wondered what would have happened if he was left to remain focused on his project for sometime, and given the opportunity to further explore this creative venture, with access to tools and supplies. Who knows what would have become of his fabrication. This is child-led learning. This is the perfect example of a child who clearly has an interest in construction. All sorts of learning can be applied to his choice of project, maths and geometry, comparing and measuring all of which can be explored. Creative thinking, conceptualisation, problem solving and independence all play a large role in a project such as this. Most importantly you will have the desire, willingness and enthusiasm of the child. Isn’t this ideal? Children learning in a way, that allows them to set their own course, a direction of learning where we are simply not filling them with masses of information that they cannot relate to, or have little interest in learning about and possibly will never again use in their lives. Of course, when we leave the education system as young adults we usually once again return to learning more naturally.  When we want to know more about a topic or subject, we begin the process ourselves. Technology allows us to research and explore information on just about anything we want to know about.  We pursue our interests, and intern continue the process of learning by our own innate wisdom once again.

A Room of One’s Own

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and charity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

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if i were sitting with you, teaching you how to gain access to your own unconscious companions, I would symbolically take you by the hand and say, “Follow me, because i know how to find them .” I know how they disguise themselves in your psyche and spirit and how they hide themselves in the events of your life.. When I look at someones face, i look beyond that face and into the cellular memory in my heart that says, “Finally you and I have met again. And now we must find out why.” To sense an archetypal thread connecting you to another person is to connect with a soul agreement that has finally manifested in time and space.

-Caroline Myss, Sacred Contracts

IMG_1137she says, ‘I just keep trying to walk through my karma with as much grace as possible. She believes that before we live our earthly lives, we choose our lessons. For her, our karma is really our decision once we’re here, whether we will or will not honour our souls journey to authenticity.’

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

Pealing back the layers is hard. Its confronting and messy. There comes a time when it becomes necessary, if what we are really wanting is to be more complete within ourselves. It’ s a time when no matter how much you want to blame the other, for all the heartaches that have transpired, you understand that blame really serves no purpose, it keeps you living within the pain, it keeps all that you were wanting to escape from, present. It stops you from healing. And healing is what you need. It takes immense courage to see and understand that all the injustices, betrayals of trust, acts of unworthy behaviour towards you, were really acts of grace. What if the other is always only reinforcing what we honestly believe to be true about ourselves and you realise that the only person that really brought you to this place is yourself? If you truly love and believe in yourself would you honesty accept anything lesser from another for yourself? The truth is, we are only ever receiving what we believe we deserve and it is not until we realise that we deserve better that we are able to make the necessary changes that will bring about better for ourselves. We may even, one day be thankful.

 

begin again.

IMG_0195im reading Something More at the moment, a book that has travelled many years beside me, it was at one time in my life well read and again now. As im reading im finding the stories are familiar, and i  say with immense heartache are just as familiar once again. Sarah writes, ‘if it’s true that sometimes we marry for the wrong reasons, we convince ourselves to stay for even worse ones. We stay to be kind. We stay for the kids. We stay because we think we can’t afford to leave and wont calculate the psychic cost of remaining.  We stay because we put loyalty to others above loyalty to our own truth. We stay because we are genuinely good and decent people. Good people do not walk out on marriages that are congenial enough to get through a dinner party, school conferences, a childs learning disability, a father-in-laws stroke, family holiday gatherings…’ Some women can do this and they seem to do it well, on the outside. They go about their lives, allowing themselves to slip away and they settle, settle for what they have, for what ever nourishment is offered if any is offered at all, they talk themselves into the belief that what they have is enough, that they can make do,  they are even grateful, it might not be the complete story, but its a story and its good enough..  I’m not one of them. I have always wanted my children to live in their truth, what ever that entails, even if they are to find themselves lost in their lives over and over again, even if my children have children, be brave and follow your truth.  They were my words and up until now, had only been for them. Until now, they have mattered more. All the ones i love have mattered more. I love well, somewhere and sometime ago, i stopped loving well the one who i needed the most, i stopped mattering to myself. Now, im listening to the honest words iv’e always held out for my children and offering them up for my own taking. I’m moving into my truth. i know  it will come with resistance from others, even ones i love, that is alright.  i understand that they don’t recognise me this way. It will take time to adjust, for understanding that now i am as important as they are, that now i may not always abide by the rules they have set for me. And some wont come around at all, it simply will no longer fit, maybe it will be too confronting for them, of their own stories, but that too cannot concern me now. i can let go with love the ones who are not meant to stay. What matters most now, in this moment is that I matter.

takings from.. Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life

IMG_2632“I spotted a hut in the middle of a field, near the Château de Rosay, its windows glinting in the sun, and the word café painted in giant letters on the roof. I went in for a drink, and asked the proprietor if he had rooms to let . He offered me a little cottage some fifty yards off, with a thatched roof on which iris was in bloom. The following week I spent five days there. There were red tiles on the floor of my room, and i slept in a farmhouse bed under a plumped-out blue eiderdown: at five in the morning I awoke to the sound of cocks crowing. Eyes still shut, I let myself drift between sleeping and waking, between mornings long past and the light now welling up behind my shutters. When i opened the cottage door, there was green grass, and trees all in blossom. I would go and have coffee, and put a table up under an apple tree, and become once more that little girl doing her holiday task under the catalpa tree at Meyrignac. It was to her that i was now offering what, in various forms, she had so often dreamed of: a little house to herself. ”

 

-Simone be Beauvoir, The Prime of Life

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It is hard to explain and accept that you can’t just assume that he will always embrace your affections. That after hours or days or even weeks of not seeing his delightful smile, that he would openly allow you to take him into your arms. So that you may show him how much you love him, how much he means to you. This is not how it works for him.  He must decided when. He must decide how it will play out. This is alright if you have no needs to fill, if you are perfectly happy within the space he creates for a while. It is hard to explain that this is not personal. That even a mother, a father, a grandparent or sibling can be denied at anytime. It is easy to assume that just because he wont allow you to take him in your arms, that he is not happy to see you. It is easy to mistake this for not caring. It is easy to feel hurt, even betrayed by his rejections. He is only three, and unaware of it all. I see, when people come to visit, how excited he is, how he hides this behind peculiar noises and animal masks. I see, that he is wanting to engage you, how happy he is that you are here, that you have come to see him. He may not show you this in the way you are expecting. He may show you this by watching you for a while from a distance, he may talk to you from behind his hands or he’ll find something for you to play with beside him. When he’s ready, when he feels that there is no longer any pressure, he will show you love. The love that you were seeking from the very beginning. I have found that it is always better to ask first. This is an unusual mannerism to try to adopt, to try to get others to follow suit too,  that we should ask the other if a cuddle is alright or a kiss to say I love you, especially if that other is only a child. We are so accustomed to greeting each other this way, it comes naturally for most, and usually expected. It’s a pattern we have had to relearn for this little one. In the process it is teaching us about boundaries and personal space even with the ones we love. We are having to teach him about feelings and empathy and faces and body language. Why we sometimes cry and that laughing means you are happy. We are learning too, every step of the way, to take more notice of each other, to read the signs, to assume nothing and most of all to be patient. I don’t know if this will ever come naturally to him, if he will always find it at times uncomfortable and unnecessary. I’m not sure if we can change this or if we even should be trying. He is who he is, it won’t always fit with the world, it won’t always be what we want it to be, but if we can teach him to love and embrace himself in all his uniqueness and not be bothered so much about the things that really don’t matter, then I believe, that will be more than enough.

she is..

She is the masters finishing touch. Eve is the crown of the creation, Not an after thought. She is Gods final touch, his pièce de résistance. She fills a place in this world nothing and no one else can fill. Look out across the earth and say to yourself.. The whole vast world is incomplete without me.

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.. this is what it is like to be with a woman at rest, a woman comfortable in her feminine beauty. She is enjoyable to be with. She is lovely in her presence. Your heart stops holding its breath. You relax and believe once again that all will be well.

 

-John and Stasi Eldredge, Captivating

 

hitting the ground

 Even though she might.. hit bottom via famine, capture, injured instinct, destructive choices and all of the rest, remember at the bottom is where the living roots of psyche are. It is there that a womans wild underpinnings are. At bottom is the best soil to sow and grow something new again. In that sence, hitting bottom, while extremely painful, is also the sowing ground.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

 

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Instinct is a difficult one to define, for its configurations are invisible and though we sence they have been part of human nature since the begining of time; no one knows quite where they might be housed neurologically or precicly how they act upon us.

 

 

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Without warning, sometimes life just calls for us to hit the ground. To do nothing except be with whatever it is that has called us there. Most of the time for women this fall is unexpected and abruptly interferes with the routines we have created and the taking care of the children.  We are, all at once forced to pay attention to ourselves and see what it is that has sent us suddenly plummeting.  I have always thought myself to be in-touch with this inner knowing, wisdom of my own truth, I know now, that this too can get entangled and in a way lost within our all too busy and full lives. If we allow ourselves to wander too far astray from this unique and mysterious magic within ourselves by being too compliant, too good, too accommodating, too obliging, trying to bend and shape ourselves into something that clearly doesn’t fit, we are in danger of losing touch with our deepest intuition. “Instead of living freely, she begins to live falsely.’  Our intuitive nature  gives us the ability to know our own truth, to see the unseen, to feel the truth of something before it is presented to us. ‘…to strip away her intuitive nature, her natural curiosity..  (which) leads her to discover “what lies underneath” and beyond the obvious,’ is devastating to the soul of the woman. Women have a way of losing themselves so to speak, in the raising of the children, in the taking care of others, the house, their husbands, their jobs, always serving themselves last. She drinks the cold cup of tea, allows all she loves and sometimes doesn’t to walk before her, that’s just what we do, we save ourselves for later.  We do this because we love and care deeply. We see the ones around us so clearly that we make way, allow them to step first in their lives. If women do this without balance, without coming from a place of their soul truth, they are in danger of finding themselves lost within a world that isn’t entirely theirs, one where the windows of life that have a way of opening as we move forward on our paths, suddenly are closed. By not being completely true with ourselves we are out of alignment with this Life force. The Life force that resides within us. As women it is vital that every spoon we feed into the mouths of our babies, we first spoon into ourselves. At times throughout our lives it becomes necessary to dispose of the old clothes, the ones ‘which have become slackened from the wearing. The clothes are like us, worn and worn until our ideas and values are slackened by the passing of time.’ in the doing for others and not paying attention to our own inner desires closely enough. This is when we hit the ground, this is where the renewal, the revivifying, takes place.. in the re-discovering of what we really hold to be true, what we really hold sacred.

For many women, this task requires that they clear a time each day for contemplation, for a space to live in that is clearly their own with paper, pens, paints,tools, conversations, time, freedoms that are for this work only. Each woman has her own preferences, her own way.