The Natural Childscape

 Really interesting talk from the author of "Kith" the very best book I have ever read on Childhood.



And this vimeo video is a wonderful elaboration on the theme: http://vimeo.com/68430907

Mister Medlar, Missus Quince and other stories

Our local National Trust park is laden with Sweet Chestnut trees. A couple of weeks ago we went out foraging and came home with bagfuls of the things! We seemed to be the only ones picking up the loot until a few curious children stopped by and started to imitate our strange chestnut hop as Fina calls it. As the prickles on the chestnut shells are too prickly to handle you must place the chestnuts between your feet and push down with your toes till the lovely little chestnuts pop out. This technique works easily on ripe chestnuts. 

They are delicious roasted in a pan over the fire ( make sure you prick them with a knife first to stop them exploding) 

You can also cook them in a roasting pan in the oven!

My very own hippy: Emmy with feathers in her favourite hat!

Now there is a story here. The little red breasted chap above made quite an acquaintance with my aspiring ornithologist Boo.

 After chestnuting the girl's went off into the woods to explore while I sat down on a bench by the lavender gardens with a well needed cup of tea. About 25 minutes later Boo comes running over to me asking me to come quickly. I follow her into the woods slowly and quietly. As I approach Emmy and  Matilda I notice a robin pecking at the ground about an inch or so from her foot. We all sit on the lovely dark, barky earth and watch in awe as the Robin flits about, alights upon a branch only inches from us, cocks his little head to observe us better and proceed to sing us the most beautiful chittering little lullaby. It seems as if he is trying to entertain us or communicate with us in some way. Boo offers a few twittering noises in response ( hoping of course that they translate into some polite bird conversation) and he responds with more interested chatter!

We are not sure what the conversation was about but it was certainly animated and, as far as we could discern,  amiable.

Boo plucked a few small worms from the ground and unearthed a few little seeds while she was at it. The robin's eager eye spotted the meal laid before him immediately and flew to the ground to eat without a care in the world. Mister Robin had a Missus in the woods with him but she was a little shyer than her husband and spent the whole time flittering about in the denser shrubs and bushes. We could hear her nagging at her husband all the with in no small degree of exasperation. Boo translated her: "Dear Mister Medlar, do please come quickly now for our nest is nothing but a bundle of twiglets and these riff raffs will trample my folded linens with their big, clumsy feet."  I thought Miss Potter would be proud of that! Apparently, (according to Miss Boo) Mister Medlar's wife is called Missus Quince :)

We must have stayed in that wood for 40 minutes or so till our bums were numb and are fingers frozen stiff. When we emerged from the soft light of the leafy woods into the park grounds we were all in a bit of a daze. It truly had felt as if we had been in a different realm all together. Boo said that it was the single most amazing experience of her whole life thus far! Quite a statement for a nearly 10 year old!

So far we have since visited Mister Meddler and Missus Quince 3 more times and on each occasion the little male Robin came and chatted with us for as long as we stayed. Boo certainly seems to have a way with animals!

Yes the video's below are named Sparrow1, 2 & 3. Please ignore. Tani (our resident techie) clearly doesn't know a Robin from a radish :) We love him all the same.

Medicine Dreams

The dream is a sacred thing to many tribal cultures. 

It is a vision for life, a finding of the soul. 

Native people of many ancient traditions call it medicine.

The dream is meant to heal the most broken part of ourselves and help heal the most broken part of others we meet along our journey through life.

It is what makes us whole again, uniting us to our soul and the soul of the the earth and the spirit of the one who created both.

In some Native American tribes, a youth, when ready to find his medicine will sit upon a mountain for four days and four nights without eating or drinking.

A young Aborigine in Australia will be taken to a place deep in the outback desert. In that place of solitude he will also find His dream and it will become his strength and it will lead him, safely home.

In the western world we have career advisers.

Our dream has now become deeply connected to our social status and that is reflected in the career path we forge.

How many people would prefer their child to become a gardener over a scientist, a cleaner over an accountant or a carpenter over an executive.

Not everyone, but the prevalent norm is to place our greatest value on status and salary.


This is all reflected in which subjects are taken most seriously in schools. 

Practical vocational qualifications, the arts, humanities and spiritual studies, are generally not considered as important or valuable as the hard sciences or mathematics.

We are encouraged to follow the path which most effectively enhances our sense of value in society. Whether or not the pursuit of such a path is of any inherent value within itself.

The advertisers, the media, politicians and ultimately those who benefit most and pull the most strings, the corporations, have replaced the true dream with a superficial version.

This is a great crime against our human souls and it is going unnoticed because it is happening so slowly.

 

The Media sells us false dreams.

While we run ourselves ragged simply trying to work and look after our families, we become passive to the effects of the media on our consciousnesses.

The media plays up to every one of our base impulses. It encourages us to consume above and beyond our means and needs.

 It also makes us fear the world around us while giving us the message that ultimately we are impotent and powerless to change anything.

But the most scary truth is that we are becoming numb.

We are losing the ability to truly see and hear the voice of our souls.

The voice of the sacred in the everyday.

And it is young people who are most vulnerable to mistake the false dream for the real one.



Maybe this is because the dream replacement seems quite congenial, non confrontational, consumer friendly and relatively safe compared with the true dream.

In the new dream Saint Nicholas becomes Father Christmas, Jesus becomes a blond, blue eyed, life coach, and American Idol and X factor become the initiation ceremonies for our youth.

In contrast, the true dream of our souls may very well lead us away from materiel security, the pursuit of wealth, perpetual beauty and comfort, and the instant pleasures and conveniences that factories across the world supply at both an environmental and human cost.



I took a walk outside the other night, far away from the orange street lamps and the hazy atmosphere. 

 I found a place completely dark except for the stars and the crescent moon.

I sat and heard the stories nature tried to tell me, the ones I am usually to busy to hear.

The rustle of the leaves, awaking me softly to the night, both within and without.

The river sings of our deepest truth.

The truth that is present within all things from seed, to birdsong, to the human heart.

I pray to be more present to the wisdom of  this sacred truth.

I have the feeling that our collective dream still sings somewhere along that river.

 

The taste of Autumn

We picked some wild quince, meddlers and apples last week. The taste of old variety English apples is the taste of Autumn. I miss it.

 I told the girl's stories about when we used to pick apples from the orchards and roadside trees years ago. Some were green and irregular as cobbles, some were gold as an ovulating harvest moon, some were pink as fuchsias, many had a worm at the core :)

My favourite were the small, sharp pink ones, They burst inside your mouth and crunched like a piece of brittle bark on an untrod woodland path. The pink of their skins seeped like a sunset through to the core.

The fragrant scent of quince and the mustiness of meddlers spread through the house as they laid in the basket waiting to be made into crumbles, pies, chips and sauce.

I love the idea of  guerrilla gardening, growing and gathering varieties of fruit and vegetable in places where people can pick them freely. Maybe it is a way of preserving heritage varieties of edible plant for future generations.

It may also be a way of reclaiming our commons.