Waldorf Style Storytime

Rebecca over at the lovely Waldorf inspired blog "Bending Birches" shared a beautiful wintertime story in a recent post.
I made my own little version of it for my girls. They were mesmerised by the quiet, details, especially the part where the snow falls soft upon the ground.



Simple stories really seem to capture their imaginations. They were reenacting the story over and over again afterwards adding little bits of their own as they went.





I have a feeling we won't be reclaiming our dining room table any time soon.

{This Moment}

{this moment}, a Friday ritual.

A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

Joining Soulemama

a birthday ramble

My Birthday was a gentle day... The girls woke me with gifts, a dozen or so little origami animals poems and hand made cards...:)
We watched the magical Arrietty.







It's amazing how you can learn to feel so much of what another person feels, that you almost feel like you are really apart of one another.

Tani and I couldn't be more different as personalities but somehow over the years we seem to have melded into one soul.

I need his strength and out-going-ness, to offset my vulnerability and introversion.

I need his practical mind to balance my impulsiveness.

I need his earth like temperance in clay.

It channels my fragile little stream from it's little woodland dwelling to the open air and the blue skies of possibilities.




Vicki mentioned the briggs meyers test in the comments recently which I took a couple of years ago and recently again.

I am a typical INFP and Tani is almost the complete opposite an ENTJ!

We often joke that it was the language barrier that kept us together long enough in the beginning to clinch a deal.




When we first met, Tani spoke a little English with a very odd accent with bits of Geordie, Irish and Liverpudlian thrown into the mix as he had been working on building sites with people from all over the country since landing in London.

But I never laughed so much in all my life than I did when we were together.

No matter what we have been through, we have always been able to laugh.

I know this is a true gift.




Lately I've been thinking about my life, how I have become who I am and how I've struggled to allow my own true voice to come through after protecting it under layers and layers for years and years.

I've cried for the girl I was, the child who was afraid and alone almost constantly.

The child who could do nothing but run to save her life.

The girl who always felt like an outsider, a stranger.

The girl who needed to build family and foundations, before she could even begin.

And here I am beginning, it seems late, with a lifetime and a half behind me, within me, yet still not brave enough to fledge from the bough.




I look out at the horizon, but sometimes, I feel like I'll never feel at home here in this world.

I'm super stressed by things like crowds, supermarkets, neon lights, driving on motorways.

I hate the feeling of adrenaline, it makes me feel nauseous.

Maybe I've had my quota of it in the past so that now I get an allergic reaction to it or something.

Maybe I should have been born in a quieter, slower paced time.

Certainly, at times, it feels as if my biology hasn't quite evolved to meet the standards of modern life.

Take me to the woods and I'll be at home.




I need to find a way of being in the world that doesn't feel like I'm compromising who I truly am and what I believe in.

I need to find a way to manifest my story into something tangible without betraying it, or diluting it or simply hiding it as I have so often done.

The thing is it seems hard to reconcile so many aspects of the modern world with my own heart and soul.

I want to live simply, without all the complexity, the arbitrary rules, the "stuff" but what a challenge that is.

It seems as if you have to be self supporting to begin with if you want to have a chance of surviving outside of the system.




I've been reading a lovely little book called Balancing Heaven and Earth by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson, who is one of my favourite writers. In it he talks of how we can set others free when we find our own freedom.

I find that I am drawn to people who have a sense of freedom about them, people who have that childish quality that allows them to unselfconsciously be themselves.

To speak without filters or censorship and to love others without filters or censorship.

People who are not afraid to just open up or do something fun or unconventional or non conformist.

People who will challenge rules that don't bend toward deep, messy human love.

People who will be unfaithful to remain faithful.




I've also been thinking about what life means to me in an essential way.

Relationships, nature, God and meaning are my sacred four.

I feel quite deeply that my mission is to learn how to love. Really love.

Love the essential goodness present in all people.




I was talking to Boo today about how sometimes even the worst bits of us actually come from an essentially good instinct.

Like wanting a pretty dress is a veil for a love of beauty.

Boasting, is a veiled desire to believe we are specially loved, which in fact we are.

Even a lie simply aches to be worthy of the truth.

It's almost like a wish.




Girls often have their inner princess squashed as a child, but that inner princess is real.

It a way for God to exalt the soul.

Show that it is cherished beyond measure despite it's natural flaws.

It is that little piece of us that bears the image of something beyond, something eternal.

Sometimes when my girls have done something they know is wrong I'll bundle them up good and tight, look into their eyes and tell them that I can still see them.

I can still see that they are beautiful. No matter what.




This afternoon I started thinking about a few things that have been a big influence of me.

Things that have really opened my eyes, my heart, my soul over the years.

Things that have fed me, or awakened me, given me clarity and perspective.

I got it down too the absolute minimum which was super hard.

But these books, movies, writings seem to have been the ones that stuck most to my soul and changed it through love and clarity for the better.

These have mentored, counseled and helped me grow ...

Books

The poetry of Rumi
Love by Earnesto Cardenal
Women Who Run with the Wolves Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Dumbing us Down John Taylor Gatto
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden Robert Johnson
Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

Movies

Baraka
The Thin Red Line
Babies
Into Great Silence

Spirit

"Be the change you want to see" Gandi
The Beatitudes

Ojibwa Prayer

People

John Trudell
Martin Luther King
Saint Therese
Mother Teresa
Jeanne d'arc
John Bradburne Vagabond of God
Saint Isidore the Farmer

This poem...

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to
be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can
disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Moving to the woods... For those who keep dreaming

"To be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor an to have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy."
~"Uncle Zovar : The Faithful Gardener" Clarissa Pinkola Estes.



There is a sycamore tree in our back garden. Whenever I catch a quiet moment to myself, or maybe when I'm doing the washing up I gaze at it.



Each season it gives me a new story, in it's starkness, it's fiery glory, it's tender greenness or it's carefree Summer flourish.



Whenever I feel alone or sad I am drawn to the window. The green leafed hope and life rustling like a prayer I cannot yet speak.



In the front garden grows an Ash and a Rowan.
The Ash grows right against our window. Many people have said we should cut it down but I can't.



Sometimes I can look at it and imagine that our house is within a wood. Sometimes birds come and rest on it's branches and I can see them so close, each thin fleck of feather, the delicate curves of their bodies. I am reminded of my childhood wonder again.



We are surrounded by buildings and lights on all sides. The sky is a small square framed by angles. In the evening the orange glow of the street lights spread a musky gauze so that it is hard to see the stars clearly.






I pine for a closer relationship with with the land. I want to bury my hands in dirt, feel the roots, the moistness the movement of the seasons. Be able to cup my hands in the stream and drink. Do you remember when we used to swim in ponds and rivers?



Nature was the one thing that reminded me that there was a God when I was a child. It also told me that God was good. He was a storyteller, an artist, a poet, healer.



I watched a documentary about Yellowstone last night.
After the Native people had been removed from the land, many of the first settlers arranged epic hunting expeditions that almost wiped out the wildlife.



In an attempt to save the wilderness, some environmentalists of the day argued that Yellowstone could make a great tourist destination. But first of all, they would have to kill all the wolves to make it more people friendly.



However, this was a mistake as the wolves naturally culled elk and other species which ate trees and plants such as willow which the beavers need to make their dams.



After attempting to artificially cull the elk themselves the park officials finally, reintroduced the wolf to the park. Watch the video below to see how Wolves change rivers.






Yet somehow the ecology of the wilderness was still not quite in balance and still required human modification and management.



The park managers questioned why this was. Finally they realized that the missing element was the Native people. Those whom they had first evicted! Yet those native peoples were an intrinsic part of that particular ecology, just as the wolf, the willow and the elk were!



The difference was that the Indigenous people's lived off the land in a way that could enrich it rather than harm it.



People need nature to move them, mold them, remind them of God. When our connection with nature is broken so is our connection with God. We forget to treat the earth as a living, breathing being and we harm her for things we don't really need.



The earth and us, are one and the same, just as we are part of God and He a part of us. We need each other to be whole. To be holy even.






 “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
― John Muir


Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.

Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.

Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.

Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.

Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.

Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.

Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.

- An Ute Prayer






And finally, some inspiration for a free spirited life this beautiful film "Live Before you Die" 
Live Before You Die from Dreamtime Film on Vimeo.

Growing girls...

Well what have we been up to this week?

Nola cried and cried during her 8 month check up where, as I predicted, they stripped her down, weighed, measured and assessed her just to let me know that she is fine :) Which I kind of already new :) Poor little baby thought it was such a big adventure till she had to sit on those cold scales :(



She's still a wee wittle girlie just hitting the 25th percentile, but she has always been that way so no surprises.
Miss Nola has got herself quite a personality now! She is very cuddly and loves to snuggle while wriggling her little body about. She loves to get in on whatever any of us are doing. She loves to race behind the sofa and bury her little face in the carpet till we say "where is Nola?" Then she'll pop her head out and giggle happily thinking she has quite fooled us all!



She loves to scurry across the front room in a game of chase. I'll follow after her on all fours till I catch up with her, when I do she sprawls and I tickle her under the arms. She loves her little animals and dollies and anything that she can shake and rattle. She babbles away and has said a few words (I think) because she is quite consistent with them "Mama" is for when she's crying, or whinging :) She also says among other sounds... "Dada", "Baba" for baby, "up" for cup (she is obsessed with cups :) "baw" for ball. She also makes the cutest clicking noise with her mouth whenever she is hungry.



At the moment she doesn't eat too much, but will happily eat a few spoonfuls of organic bio yogurt, mashed fruit, carrot, potato and porridge. She also loves to suck the juice out of an orange segment or gnaw on a rice cracker.



Yesterday when I washed her hair a little curl popped up on the top of her head, it is still there, I'm now wondering if she might have wavy hair instead of dead straight. The little birth mark on above her top lip is fading. I'm a little sad :( We have always called it the spot where the angels kissed her.



There is an old story about why we have a philtrum ( the groove between the top lip and the nose). Apparently the angels impress their finger upon the lips of all babies so they can't tell the secrets of heaven when they are born :) Well this little one tells me a few secrets:)



The three middle girls seem to have had a huge wave of energy recently. They are constantly coming up with ideas, plays, stories, art projects, garden projects, and I let them get on with it most of the time as I don't want to squash their momentum. It is wonderful to see how beautifully they co-operate whenever their is a shared incentive :)



And although written evidence that learning is happening may not be immediately evident, I always find that they seem to make great leaps during these frenzy's of creative play.