just add water

Saturday Cuppa: Pear and ginger tea

My whole life has been punctuated with the nourishing element of water. I was reminded of this last night when I watched the video of my first daughter's waterbirth at home, by candle light.

The earliest, conscious memories I have of water are from about the age of four. Living in Brisbane, Australia, where it is often humid, we had a swimming pool which I was forever jumping into. My mum's first memory of me with water was seeing my little body sinking to the bottom of the pool! It still sends a shiver down her spine.

We later moved up the road to a larger house with a huge oval swimming pool and a very large passion fruit vine, (heaven, in one back yard). I spent hours eating those perfect sub-tropical fruits straight from the vine, and swimming.

And then there was Dead Horse Creek, a little dam in our suburb of Woodridge, where I'd hang out with my older siblings and their friends as they swung off a rope into the pond. I'll probably never know why it was called Dead Horse Creek, but I'm hoping there weren't any dead horses in there!

This probably sounds really disgusting, but I absolutely LOVED it when it rained and I could sit in the gutter of our street and let the water wash over me. The single biggest thing I miss about Australia is the tin roofs and the melodic sound of rain beating down.

At six, my parents moved from the city to Freestone, a small farming community about 15 minutes drive from the town of Warwick, on Queensland's Darling Downs. Here, on our 700 acre property of fields and mountains, was the most beautiful spring-fed creek. As children, we walked the length of it, from the small, yet deep, dam at the base of the waterfall, and up along the creek's winding path of granite rock, high into the hills. Hidden from the world by densely growing eucalyptus trees and wattle bushes, my childhood was played out in freedom, fun and fantasy along the base of our mountain where the creek flowed.

We cooked food over a fire fed from twigs and dried leaves while listening to the water gurgle over the rocks. On horseback, my friend Cherry and I went high into the mountain range and camped under the stars. As if time has stood still, I can still smell the exquisite scent of the wild lemon tree at the creek's edge.

My brothers and I often tried to make rafts to carry us along the creek, but our most popular device was actually wearing thick padded winter coats underneath raincoats and floating on the creek during a flood. Not so much floating as rocketing! Oh my, it was so much fun!! Deathly dangerous, no doubt, but thoughts like that didn't enter our heads. This gave me an appetite for white water rafting later on when I was in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand.

We made mini dams from rocks and tried to change the direction of the water. It could only ever be temporary as water is such a powerful force.

Blood sucking leeches were an occupational hazard whenever we jumped into the dam!

I can still taste the perfect, cool mountain water which I drank straight from the creek. People don't do that these days, do they? Well, at least not before sending the water off to be analysed in a laboratory. We never had to worry about farmers dumping toxic material into the water as at that time there was no-one upstream from us.

The 'waterhole' dam at the base of the waterfall was my favourite because it was tucked away by trees, hugged by maiden hair ferns, and hugged by hills, but we also had man-made dams on the property which were always brown and mucky from the soil at its base. In one part of the land, the soil was rich red and in another area, as black as a red belly black snake. We'd ride our horses, bare back, into these dams and have mud fights. We weren't precious about keeping clean. Always, always, always would we arrive home, completely filthy. The smiles on our faces probably overrode the heaviness in my mother's heart when she realised how much washing she had to do. Now I'm a mother myself, I can see it was probably worth the price of having your children disappear for hours on end.

Most parts of our garden were on a hill so we put a really long strip of plastic down, added a few drops of washing-up liquid, and a hose. We called it the 'slip and slide'. I can only begin to imagine the fun my own girls would have with such an adventure in their back garden.

The all time favourite, though, was the old tractor tyre, inner tube removed, hung long ways by rope from the majestic Pepperina tree in the front garden. The sides of the tyre were held apart by a piece of wood, so we could fit a child in either side. Filled with warm, soapy water, the fun began when another child would push the tyre against the tree and we'd get soaked with water. Activities like this, or playing in the circular horse troughs, kept us amused for hours.

When I used to wag school (Aussie equivalent of playing truant) my favourite place to go was down by the weir of the Condamine River. I didn't need to 'do' anything there, I just sat, watching the water flow by me.

I first wrote poetry when a family friend took me fishing one weekend. He and his sons fished, and I sat at the edge of the bank writing in my head and capturing how I felt about everything around me ~ the flies, water, wildflowers, gathering storm clouds…

Near Warwick is Leslie Dam, a huge lake popular for water sports, particularly water skiing. My favourite was canoeing. It was here we were brought for one of our school camps ~ the highlight of my school years. Another camp was elsewhere, I've no idea where, just that I completely trashed my favourite pair of shorts, sliding down a waterfall. And it was worth every last cotton thread! It had a 45 degree slope, was covered in moss, and made the best slippery-slide ever. The teachers couldn't drag me away.

At 16, I left home and moved to South Australia, and again, my favourite memories include water. Sitting high on a grassy hill in a friend's hot tub ~ no lights, no houses for miles, and then, in the distance, at midnight, a train etched along the horizon of a distant hill. It was eerie and yet so beautiful.

Camping in the bush was a favourite source of adventure for me…off with friends and sleeping bags for a weekend, swimming in dams, remote gorges, or the great Murray River; using old tyres to float on, as we lazed in the sun. Somehow water transformed day to day life.

Christmas by the beach in 40 degree Celsius heat isn't necessarily something a Northern Hemisphere person might associate with the Holy Season, but there really is something festive about loads of watermelon and sea water.

In New Zealand, a lover took me to a secret hide-away, where a hot spring touched the cool water of the mighty Waikato river, and together, under starlight and a full moon, we melted into the warm water. Two naked bodies, alone on Earth, surrounded by nothing by native New Zealand trees and bush. I tell you, no girl needs wine and chocolate when she's had an experience like that ~ the ultimate in romance!

On a remote South Australian shoreline, my friend Amy and I sat amidst large rocks, waves spraying against us by a brewing storm, to watch seals swimming in the moonlight. There are moments in life which simply stay etched in your memory forever, moments which no amount of money can buy.

Pennysylvania, USA. In my mid 20s, I went to the States to Amy's homeland. The day was spent trekking through barren, ploughed fields, caught deep in conversation with a best friend, making memories. New Year's Eve ~ sitting outside in a steamy hot tub with friends, snow flakes dancing in the New Year and landing on my shoulders. Steam and ice…

Giving birth in water was a natural place for me to welcome my love-child Earthside. I'd devoured spiritual and esoteric literature on the incoming soul's need for a gentle transition to gravity. I confessed to my midwife that I longed to give birth with dolphins as midwives ~ somewhere in a sheltered bay. The birth pool was too small. I needed space. I needed nature. I compromised by swimming with dolphins in pregnancy off New Zealand's north coast.

Instead of thinking I was crazy, my midwife understood and gave me a video to watch of Russian women giving birth alongside dolphins!

My mother's story of her Magic Bath led me to write my first children's story ~ Oma's Magic Bath. From her little hand made hut in the Tasmanian mountains, she would fetch water from the creek to tip into the outside bath. It was perched off the ground a couple of feet and she would light a fire underneath to warm the water. When it was hot enough, she'd step in, hot chocolate in hand, and soak, soak, soak. Watched only by tall trees, birds, stars, my mother had a luxury most of us never experience.

Last weekend my girls were playing down the road in our local beck (creek)..splashing and squealing. On the bank, the bluebells out a month early!!, chatting with friends, one of which is a lady in her 70s, we shared childhood memories of water. She smiled the whole time and said that her childhood was full of playing in water, and how different it is for most children today, stuck in houses, glued to tv, mobile phone or computers. Parents are scared of their children going outside. She's right, of course. Many parents do live in fear of the unknown and their children pay the price.

I've often found when my girls were antsy and needed calming that I simply had to 'just add water' and the outcome would always improve. Sometimes it was just a bowl and a cup, other times it was a bucket of water in the garden. It's never needed to be vast quantities of water, just something to 'feel'. Eliza's spent her last few bath times with a bowl (half a coconut shell) to which she's attached match sticks for oars, and been amused for ages. Walnut shells are often a favourite with children too.

Last Saturday we picnicked at Talkin Tarn and then Paul took the girls out rowing on the tarn for a while. Such a simple pleasure, yet that half hour of connecting with water, with nature, was so nourishing to the soul.

Walking by the ocean, negative ions washing away stress, proves so healing for many people. People flock to the beach in summer, but funnily, I've always enjoyed being there in the depths of winter, on a wild, windy day, a lone figure upon the shoreline, ambling to the sound of seagulls.

I have come to see that water needs to be free-flowing in my life and when I again find a piece of Earth to guardian, it is with the hope it has a creek passing through with which to paddle my feet.

Our growing companions

Saturday Cuppa: Ginger and Lemongrass, for clarity

In search of my mother's garden I found my own
~ Alice Walker

I don't know if there is anything that compares to the pleasure of smelling your newborn baby, or being wrapped in the tender arms of your soul-mate all night long; but having my hands in fertile soil, letting it fall loosely between my fingers as I sieve it tenderly before planting seeds, comes a pretty close second.

Transformed by Spring sunshine, I feel the emergence of my second self as I sit amongst the new green shoots all desperately reaching towards the light. When the sun shines, being in the house feels like a prison, the garden feels like heaven. I want to spend every waking moment soaking in the sunshine, playing amongst the plants, listening to bird song. The rest of life can take a running jump when I'm pottering outside.

As a child, I learnt about the art of companion planting from Mrs Green Fingers ~ aka my mum! Thirty odd years ago, to even suggest such a thing as companion planting would have raised eyebrows. Mum had no qualms about planting garlic alongside her roses. She often planted the same species of tree in groups of 'three' so they had company. Bless her! My mother always planted according to the phases and signs of the moon. It's no exaggeration to say her garden truly looked like paradise, while the gardens of the neighbouring properties often looked barren.

The young girl in the house of her mother is like a seed in fertile ground
~ Monique Wittig

In my garden I avoid mono planting…no long rows of lettuce, but patches of them, with marigolds and strawberries tucked in between and all around. And it's all very well having a herb garden, but dill and fennel are arch enemies…so dill gets to camp in the potato bed and they love each other to bits! And they're both happy if broad beans want a ménage à trois. Carrots and onions snuggle side by side, while tomatoes and basil do their thing. Although I have vegetable beds, the truth is everything is a mix 'n' match game. Herbs, flowers, fruits, berries and vegetables live in harmony, growing alongside, and above and below each other, with their needs catered for as best as I humanly can. The truth is, some prefer more light than others, some need damper soil for their roots while other plants like pretty crap soil! More often than not, one plant will protect another from insects by its scent.

Humans could learn a lot from plants ~ especially plants grown in harmony through companion planting.

In my search for like-minded people with whom to share my life, I often question the need for similarity and diversity. It is instinctive to flourish when we're well supported. For some of us, that support inevitably comes from being around similar people, and yet others need the variety, the stimulation, the duality of something a little different. Some plants seek shade or shelter and just as melons and pumpkins thrive in the shade of sweetcorn, so do some shy people thrive in the apparent shadow of a sunflower. Perhaps, though, the sunflower is all the more tall for the shadow at its feet?

Regardless of our particular preferences, what we all seek is harmony. It seems a strange irony then, that many people in our culture have never truly experienced such harmony. I'm often amazed when I go to town just how rudely couples speak to each other. And this is their beloved? I wouldn't want to be their enemy!

Harmony is something we learn about in the womb. Our mother's energy feeds us every second of our gestation. Is it a food of love, nurturing, happiness and joy or is mother in a constant state of anxiety? Is she fighting with father, numbed out in front of tv or having an affair because she's bored with our dad?

When we emerge Earthside, fresh from Divinity's Arms, thank God we have the veil drawn over our tender being, because I think almost all of us would opt out of this journey we call Life before we take our first breath. How often is a baby truly welcomed into this world in a way which befits her Divine Heritage? Instead, more than a quarter of babies are cut from their dark, warm, water womb and pulled, without warning, into bright lights and gravity. We wipe their eyes, jab them with Vitamin K, swaddle them in harsh fabrics, pop them on scales because the world will end if we don’t weigh them!!, and something as innately bonding, harmonious and loving as being in mother's arms somehow doesn't register as important. If this is our welcome to Earth, as played out in most modern day births, then how do we expect people to live in a state of Grace, of harmony and love?

And if the newly arrived soul thought birth was bad, toddlerhood isn't much better, at least not in our culture. The number of little arms I've seen nearly ripped out of sockets because a parent didn't know how to 'deal' with a tantrum is more evidence of disharmony. My kids had tantrums too, don’t get me wrong. I learnt, though, that they serve a purpose, other than to wind mum or dad up like a spring coil!

Toddlers don't need fluorescent lights, they don’t need to be taken shopping when they're tired, they don't need to have their needs put last. Toddlers aren't designed to sit patiently in cafés while parents sit for hours over coffee anymore than they're cut out to stand in a bank queue.
Pretty simply really, but it can take a while for adults to realise this, if they ever do.

If a toddler needs to get on the ground and scream and wave limbs around, then, from my experience, the best thing a parent can do is TOTALLY ignore everyone who is staring and let the child tantrum. It'll all be out of their system and harmony will return.

What often happens, however, is the parent becomes a monster, physically shakes the life out of junior, gives them chocolate or some other processed food to shut them up, not realising a bunch of white sugar and e-numbers is a perfect ingredient to raise the decibels ..and the potential for harmonious resolution is replaced by fury, anger and disrespect.

Is it any wonder, then, that children grow up into adults who don't know how to listen, how to be, how to share, how to honour, how to respect? When I see a parent yelling at a child or a man yelling at his partner or vice- versa in a way which doesn't honour either of them, I'm always transported back a generation.

Nobody grows up with lack of respect for another human unless those values weren't modelled in childhood. Please, don't ever shrug your shoulders and say "I'm just a mother". There is no sadder phrase. The future of humanity relies on mothers. Can't you feel how important and necessary good mothering is for shaping the next generation?

The plants in my garden live in harmony, supporting each other while having their needs met. How are YOU supported in life? Do you support someone else? Does it nurture both of you?
We can not be wholly fruitful and abundant if the basic needs of love, trust, harmony and kindness aren't met. Wiggle your bum over a little, find another patch of soil to grow yourself in, seek shade if you need it or reach towards the sun. Dampen those roots and reach up those leaves to the Light. You, your babies and children depend on your wise growing choices. Unlike the plants in my garden which rely on me for their growing conditions, you are entirely responsible for your growing environment and the companions your keep.

What the daughter does, the mother did.
Jewish proverb.

In one's family, respect and listening are the source of harmony
buddha

chocolate and crucifixion

Saturday Cuppa: Peppermint Tea

I've woken to a perfect Spring morning, a cloudless sky, radiant sunshine, an incy-wincy breeze ~ brought back Earthside from blissful dreams by thousands of birds rejoicing in the new day. Lambs baaa-ing since before first light.

I often wonder about lambs, and their ability to make the human heart sing by their endless playfulness. Where does this spontaneous delight to jump up and down come from, their head or heart? And, unlike other animals, how does it prepare them for adult life? Kittens scrag each other in preparation for hunting. Children imitate adults in their play, but lambs? I don't know how often, if ever, I've seen adult sheep frolic around the way lambs do.

Here in the beautiful Eden Valley, lambs and daffodils define Spring. Lambs, unlike daffodils, have a bittersweet passage on Earth. Their destiny is to mingle with mint sauce for two seconds of sensation on man's palate. I hope the joy they bring to my heart, and that of others, gives some meaning and purpose to their sweet, short lives. The downside of Spring is when I hear lambs separated from their mothers. At the farm neighbouring our garden, every sheep bleats non-stop. I can't bear their 'screams' of separation when my fellow mammals are put on the truck for market. Will humanity ever look back upon the way animals are treated and question their own evolution?

Tomorrow's Easter Sunday, so I thought I'd share a metaphysical piece I wrote for The Mother magazine a couple of years ago based on New Thought teachings.

The passing of winter ~ Crucifixion and resurrection

Easter, a weekend marked by eggs, bunny rabbits, mountains of chocolate and the crucifix. Have you ever wondered why Easter is never on a set date, as with the anniversary of any other historical event? Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the full moon in Aries. The sun's entry into Aries begins on the 21st day of March and signals the beginning of Spring. Sometime between March 21st and April 25th, the moon will form an opposition to the sun. It is precisely because of this moveable date that one should question the commonly accepted interpretation of Easter.

The Sun, as viewed from Earth, when heading north, makes a cross (+) with the equator which is an invisible line created by man. Mystics believe this to be the crucifix that 'man might live'. What is so symbolic about the Sun's movement in this way? Nature is awakening! Winter's sleep is over. IF this was about the anniversary of the life and death of a man called Jesus then the date would be fixed. The scriptural meanings are revealed when we interpret them as the psychological dramas which they represent, and are present in every human being.

It is our 'awareness of being' which is crucified. The cross we bear is determined by how we perceive ourselves. Every single time we belittle ourselves, or don't believe in our true, Divine nature, we crucify ourselves. And resurrection occurs EVERY time we 'arise' from these negative misconceptions. We can not resurrect without first going through the crucifixion process.

Good Friday, therefore, should be a time not for mourning, but for celebration. Your 'awareness' of being is what is calling to be resurrected.

The most powerful words we can ever utter or think, are I AM. It is vital, for our own well-being, that we always follow these words with something positive. To say: I AM tired or I AM fed up or I AM annoyed or I AM broke is a crucifixion. It is limiting and holds you back from your true potential. By all means say "My body is tired", for example, because the 'real' you is not your body. This way you wouldn't be affirming that your unlimited self is tired, just the vehicle that you happen to be using.

To be nailed upon the cross is to be nailed (held down) by your feelings. Negativity holds us down ~ it literally nails us to the cross. Our feelings shape our life.

To resurrect, to be liberated, we have to allow our awareness to come into being through our imagination. We have to SEE ourselves as the best we can be. What will bring you to such a place?

Try this:
"I AM loving."
"I AM joyful."
"I AM wonderful!"
"I AM abundant."
"I AM cheerful!"
"I AM peaceful."

It is only when we always imagine the best for our selves, and let our vision take form in our lives, that we truly understand the message of Easter.

OK, sermon over, you can crack into your chocolate now.

We're off to have a picnic on the banks of the beautiful Eden River and allow ourselves to be wrapped in the Arms of this beautiful day. Enjoy this magical weather!

TWO

Saturday Cuppa: Apple and cinnamon tea.

Before You
By William Arthur Ward
Before you speak, listen.
Before you write, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you invest, investigate.
Before you criticise, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try.
Before you retire, save.
Before you die, give.


Two weeks of my girlies back home from school on holidays. Two weeks to sleep in again! Two weeks of picnics together and long walks in the woods or by the river. Two weeks free of routine. Now that's what I call living!

Two lives
Last week Bethany said the kids in her class were all talking about the chocolate eggs they were getting for Easter. She kept quiet and didn't share the celebration of Easter that is a tradition in our family.

As a child, on Easter Sunday, my mum would wrap up little bundles of dried fruit and nuts for me and my seven siblings. She would put them in coloured cellophane paper, with our name on the outside, and hide it in our garden which was about 4 acres! It was truly a paradise full of a huge variety of fruit and nut trees and great fun to play in for any child. If we found someone else's bundle, we weren't allowed to tell them and had to keep hunting. I don't have the luxury of such a big garden, but I have continued the Easter Hunt with wholefood treats for my girls, which they love! They've never asked for chocolate Easter eggs.

Eliza had no issue about sharing this with her class mates, yet for Bethany it symbolised a massive difference between her and her new friends. Desperate to fit in, to melt into the 'norm', already she is hiding aspects of herself.

It breaks my heart as it is what many people in our society do. I also recognise that it is a choice and it's her journey. Paul suggested to her that she may find herself starting to live two lives ~ the life she has at home, with us, that is alternative to the world view & the life she has at school where, for the most part, she 'fits' in.

How many of us have stepped away from mainstream thinking to be true to our heart and core values? I know I certainly have and the price of that usually does mean the 'road less travelled'. I wonder though, when we choose to stay with the herd, if we ever do feel complete? For me, to live two lives in order to fit in to society and theoretically be 'accepted', would essentially mean killing off my soul. Nah, not ready for Soul Suicide. Life's to big and gorgeous to hide away.

SPRING in my step

Today's Cuppa: Blackcurrant tea ~ in celebration of the new leaves adorning our blackcurrant bushes. I find blackcurrants quite bitter little things, but for the past six or so years, my girls have stood for hours on end, for days at a time, foraging every last currant and popping them straight down the hatch. Fab source of Vitamin C! And when they're done there are always other temptations… raspberries, gooseberries, plums and before long our cherries, apple and pear will bear fruit. And there's always the hedgerows thick with blackberries! Roll on summer!

Don't spend your precious time asking
'Why isn't the world a better place?'
It will only be time wasted.

The question to ask is 'How can I make it better?'
To that there is an answer.
~ Leo F. Buscaglia

Sunday morning cuppa this week. Sorry! Got side tracked by a little thing called Spring and oh my, how glorious. Sunshine, bird song, moist garden soil, plump wriggly worms and hours of fresh air have awakened new life in me.

I've been very conscious of needing to do a massive spring clean in the house, not because it's spring, but because with spending so much time with kids, work, and latterly writing a book, that other than the basics, the house needs a good bath ~ a real scrub behind the ears. The joys of country living have their downside. Dust particles from outside, and from the wood fire, all manage to find little currents of air to magically dance and fly each little speck to all corners of the house where they settle claiming Squatters Rights. Long after a mother spider has made her babies and moved on to the afterlife, she leaves her webs to shimmy like long-forgotten ghosts waiting to take on new life. Was I the only adult to cry in the latest Charlotte's Web movie when she died? My brain kept telling me that Charlotte was an animation and her voice was Julia Roberts ~ not real, girl, not real. But did that stop me blubbering away? Nope!

Our cottage was built in 1678 ~ longer than my homeland has been settled with naughty little English convicts. At first glance, it's easy to think she's aged well and gracefully, but knowing her intimately, as I do, I see the lines of a life well lived. I also see the damp! She seriously needs incontinence knickers!!!! After all our years of living with her, we finally found a paint colour that hides the rapid mould growth which shows up in the bathroom a week after painting (in any other colour). There used to be an old chimney or something, at that end of the house, for washing laundry. I think the chimney lets water into the walls. Anyway, the colour of choice is deep purple. Combine that with it being a north facing room ~ no sun ~ and an eco-friendly light bulb ~ no light ~ and you just about need a miner's torch to enter the room! But oh how I love not seeing mould! Honest.

When Paul cork-tiled the bathroom floor we were again reminded that they didn't build straight rooms in the olden days. Nothing is even!

Most of the house has painted wooden floors. I'm determined not to paint them again as the so-called floor paint doesn't stand the test of time and I get antsy with peeled paint. It's hard to take pride in your housekeeping when it feels like the ceiling, walls and floor are coming apart!
The floor boards will come up beautifully after I've sanded them, but I know, KNOW, KNOW!! that it will set off a chain reaction of wanting to beautify the rest of this little old woman. The kitchen ceiling (beneath the bathroom) looks like it's going to cave in with years of damp having come through. That will need plastering. Most of the rooms need to be repainted. Of course, though, with an old madam like The Cottage, it's not as straight forward as a bit of lippie and rouge. No, no, no. We've got to fill the cavities with polyfiller and plaster the walls!

All these things you'd just take in your stride if you owned a house, but when you're renting, for some reason, there's always a sense of 'should I bother?' It really struck me yesterday though, that this IS our home and I should love every square inch of her with the same sort of passion I do for other things in my life. My resistance to do so is that, size wise, we outgrew this 2 bedroom cottage years ago. I find it claustrophobic when we have visitors, especially if they've got kids. When Paul's at work, and the girls are at school, it feels positively palatial. But pile more than my family in, and I start hyperventilating! (ok, slight exaggeration).

My mission for Sexy ol' Spring is to put a spring back in the step of this old dame of a cottage and in myself.

I didn't write on my blog yesterday because Spring had sprung. It was one of those perfect family days which in a strange way is hard to define because it was about feeling, rather than doing. To write what we did would seem boring and yet I'd have days like yesterday any day of the year. We all would. 'Twas just a perfectly ordinary day.

The compost heap was getting full and we needed a new one. Normally I get old wooden pallets and make a square-shaped heap, for free! Same thing from the hardware store costs £60. Insane!

Anyway, with no access to a trailer, and a small boot in this car, it wasn't possible to get pallets, but we did have a lot of wood in the back yard from our firewood supply. A local forester sells us trailers of slab wood at a very good price. Slab wood is the length and edge of a tree trunk which is curved, and often still has bark on ~ deliciously rugged and beautiful. Smells divine! Commercially, these pieces they can't be used for anything and are considered 'waste' wood. Not in my garden! WOW…Lovely rustic looking compost heap! Thanks Paul! I've also used the long lengths to mark off the vegetable beds so I can raise them a bit this year, and to define my garden paths. I'm so thrilled. It's like having little rooms in the garden defined for their individual purposes ~ herb garden, leafy greens, berries, root veg., etc.

What made the day particularly lovely was the sheer excitement of the girls, particularly Eliza. They were both keen to weed and turn over the soil without any adult prompting. Eliza spotted her first bumble bee of the season and was over the moon. I think she's destined to be an animal whisperer, such is her love of all creatures.

The happy energy between us and our connection to nature reminded me again of what is really important in my life.

Earlier in the day Eliza asked me if we could ever go and visit New Zealand (the girls' birthplace). I promised her that we would and then added, 'who knows, maybe we might even be able to buy some land there one day and start a 'community' and even set up an alternative school'.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I lowered my voice and said, 'but you'll probably be in university by then and there'll be no point'. I can't lie. Most of the dreams I have are so the children can experience them in childhood. I see them getting older so quickly that it won't be long before they can't even be called children.

Bethany's eyes grew wide and in utter disbelief she demanded to know, "WHAT ABOUT MY CHILDREN? Don't you care about them? Your grandchildren? You could build an alternative school for them!"

OUCH! Jeez. "Ok, ok!"

This spring energy is renewing my dreams within me ~ dreams of living on land and being self-sufficient; having like-minded friends and families nearby sharing in and being part of the lifestyle; and always, still, this nagging feeling of bringing the holistic ideas contained within The Mother magazine to a more mainstream audience. I need to find another channel to make it accessible in bite sized pieces.

Two opposing forces live within me ~ the hermit who'd quite happily never see another human again while she potters amongst her herbs and flowers, and the pioneer who wants to bring forth change to a technocratic world that is damaging children from in-utero, before they even step Earthside. Trouble is, both characters want equal play. I'm coming to realise though, it's never going to be one or the other. My dance in life is to let both of them speak…to have my moat, my drawbridge and then to step out when Ms Hermit has had her fill. When Ms Pioneer has worn the top off her soap box, she can come home for a bit and let Ms Hermit take over again my being again...and so it goes on.

All in all, it should keep me out of mischief as I stumble out of my winter hibernation. As for today, which is all I truly have, the sun is beckoning me into my garden. How can I resist?

Mothering Sunday

Saturday Cuppa: Back to my ol' faithful nettle tea.


Tomorrow, millions of pounds will be spent on buying flowers raised through the use of deadly, toxic, environment-destroying chemicals, quickly grown in hot houses and transported long distances. To say what? Something we seem incapable of saying for the other 364 days of the year? Doesn't anyone question the insanity of yet another potentially beautiful tribute and celebration being cast under the glare of corporate commercialism and greed? I am always challenged by people who fall into the gift trap when they can't even stand their mum; when they moan about her every day of the year.

For me, Mothering Sunday (or Mother's Day in May as celebrated in Australia) would be far better suited to every mother acknowledging mothers who aren't able to be with their children, for whatever reason. For humanity to evolve, we all have to move up a notch, and keep moving up. We're all connected, so it's vital we support each other as syster-mothers and acknowledge the job of mothering. Some people have it easier ~ healthy kids, low-need kids, supportive life partner, fluent family income and so on. Life appears 'easy'. Other mums have hell. And those who don't have the smoothest ride through life tend to be judged by their performance. And yet, aren't we all just doing our best without a 'manual' for mothering?

Paul and I were looking at a picture of famous wealthy woman the other day debating on whether she had had plastic surgery. I said she hadn't ~ that when you've got that much money you afford to look beautiful. Me too, I said ~ I'd look that glam and gorgeous with a full wallet of Monopoly money. No, honest I would!!

And it's like that with mothering. When we're rich with love, support, understanding and conscious awareness, then yes, we can look like the best mother in the world. Mothering is easy when we don't have any elements working against us.

But what about mums in prison? Or mums who've had their kids taken away by the inept social services ~ an institution as flawed and snail-slow paced as the British legal system. Are they any less worthy of the title of mother? No, they're not.

Spare a thought for them tomorrow as you give your mum flowers, chocolate and wine. Spare a thought. Please?

My heart this weekend goes out to Sally Clark's family. She was the solicitor convicted of murdering two of her children. Thanks to the ridiculous comments by the so called expert Roy Meadows, she was convicted. I had correspondence with Sally's dad while she was in prison and it was appalling how much evidence was there that the jury hadn't been given in trial. Sally's trial by media as some alcoholic middle-class mother was a disgrace to mankind. It really was.

Years later, after much campaigning by her family, her conviction was quashed when evidence was finally allowed to be given to show the boys died of a rare medical condition. Both boys. So what do you say to that Roy Meadows? The release of Sally Clark led to other mothers who'd WRONGLY been jailed for murdering their kids being released. So, you could say some good came out of it. Paaaa! At what price? At what price for some arrogant man's statistical 'evidence'?

Yesterday Sally Clark was found dead in her home. I think she died a long time ago. She died long before she went to prison. Large chunks of her vanished when her baby boys died. Until we walk in the shoes of a mother with a broken heart, we can never really understand what Mother's Day means.

*****


Perfectionist or is that perfectonist?

Had to laugh this week when a comment came in about my blog and that I appeared to be 'calm' about the girls going to school. Blogs can be deceiving! I can see that I'm going to have a lot of issues to resolve within myself on a weekly basis about the inadequacies of mainstream schooling. Promise to not to keep boring you with it all, but just I need to get this off my chest!

Bethany came home with the week's spelling words and I noticed perfectionist was spelt perfectonist. I presumed it was a typo, but felt irritated that 25+ something kids will be learning their spelling words and they didn't even have the 'luxury' of having the correct spelling to guide them. At the risk of sounding arrogant, and it certainly isn't intended like that, there are parents around here who'll have a spelling level of their child and won't know that the word was wrong. So, come spelling day, if all the kids write perfectonist, should they be marked wrong? Hardly! It was the teacher's duty to check it. I've seen a number of errors in the school's literature that has me clenching my jaw so perhaps all this SATS stuff the kids go through, really should be directed toward the staff and not the children.

Anyway, being the dutiful parent, I sent a note along to the teacher pointing out the correct spelling. That evening I asked Bethany if the teacher appeared embarrassed.

"No, she just turned away from me and looked it up in the dictionary," said Bethany matter-of-factly.

Well, I can't say it left me speechless as I ranted on about it for a while. Poor husband, must be hell being married to me sometimes. Especially when I see red!

Anyway, life's not all bad (cheeky grin!), my friend Fabienne from France is coming today. We've not seen each other for four years, so it'll be a real treat to sit back and have a long girly chat. Bitter weather on its way, so a perfect excuse to sit by the fire!

Have a great week, and however you celebrate Mother's Day, just remember, we're all in it together!

What's on the label?

Saturday Cuppa: Lime Tea

Eliza came home from school saying she was in the top level reading group in her class. It's no surprise, really, given her and Bethany are such avid readers. Most parents would feel joyous at such news, but it brought home to me this incessant need our culture has for labelling people, abilities, standards, ways of living, etc. Paul and I affirmed to Eliza that had she been in the bottom group we'd love her just as much! Our focus as parents has been to raise children who follow their heart; to discover the truth which exists for them rather than one imposed from external sources.

As a kid, I'd 'rewrite' my school report cards. Ahem. I, er, would change the D (second lowest mark) to an A (top mark). Occasionally I'd excel myself and put A+. Quite clever, really. It saddens me now though to think I HAD to do that to ensure love from my parents. Actually my mum wouldn't have been bothered but my dad clearly had some agenda for his kids. And now, as an adult, it is clear to see that out of eight children the two he most 'loves' are the two with university degrees who were also school prefects (anagram = perfect!!!!) and got Honours in their studies. The rest of us plebs don't register in his affections. Clearly without the appropriate 'label' our lives have no purpose.

A friend phoned me in the week to say she'd received the results of an assessment by the Local Education Authority on how her children were being home educated. In a nutshell, the report concluded their education was exemplary and schools would do well to follow this example. My friend was quite upset by the report. Why? Well, in the same way Eliza (and all school children) was labelled, so too was my friend. One of the reasons parents keep their children out of school is to avoid having them become identified with a tag created by someone else. So, keep them out of school to avoid 'pervasive labelling disorder' and get labelled yourself as a home educating parent! How crafty of the LEA to judge kids by judging the parents...

There's an irony that most people don’t read ingredients labels to see what rubbish they're putting in their body, yet they'll willingly wear and read a label imposed on them; a label that everybody else can read to determine what they're 'made of'.

People who parent naturally or intuitively buy into this as well. How often do we hear the terms 'earth mother', 'attachment parent', lactivist, etc? At one level we're defining who we are and yet at another we create duality by our differences. Is it human nature to sift wheat from the chaff? To sort things into order, into definition?

This week Bethany had a new friend from school come to visit one afternoon. That morning she asked if I could take down a picture we have (had!) in the lounge room. It was a life drawing of me from seven years ago, when I was at my ideal body weight. Not remotely a full frontal, it is just of me lying on my side, with my back to the artist. A simple outline in charcoal, and nothing more. Clearly, though, Bethany felt this might be a bit much for her new friend.

My first reaction was to feel like our whole lives were something that would have to be hidden lest we not offend anyone who walked into our house. Paul reminded me that when I was a teenager I had embarrassment issues with my mum too. Well, that got me even more upset. He was right! My mum was the ultimate liberated woman, yet back in the 80s when I was in High School I didn't find it that groovy to have a mum who went braless and single-handedly managed to have men fall over their own feet when she walked through town. In our smallish rural town of Warwick in Queensland, Australia, my mum with long blonde hair, breasts wobbling about beneath a t-shirt, and lyrical German accent, was rather an exotic sort of creature to those beer-bellied Aussie men! I used to get her to meet me well away from the school. I cringe at that now!

As my children immerse themselves into mainstream culture, our labels, named or otherwise, will come under the girls' glaring scrutiny. Bethany claims she doesn't care who or what we are, she just doesn't want people to laugh at us.

Laugh at us? For what? Eating consciously? Considering the earth in our daily actions? Raising our kids intuitively? They can laugh all they want honey, I'm not bothered.

A good friend phoned me yesterday afternoon. We share the same labels. I love being with her as it feels like wearing an old coat; warm, comfortable and safe. And yet, I have friends for whom there can't be a label in common apart, perhaps, from 'woman'. Somewhere, somehow, our relationship works and the labels are irrelevant as we meet in the sacred space of who we 'truly' are.

Here's a little game for you to play. Write down the three 'labels' which most identify you. Eg, Mother, wife, editor, sister, gardener, pianist, dancer, lover, teacher, healer, midwife, doula, yogi, student of spiritual studies, gymnast, doctor, raw fooder, chef, vegan…

Now take those titles away. If you could no longer wear those labels or be identified in that way, WHO WOULD YOU BE? How would you describe yourself to others? How does it feel NOT to have those identity tags? Do you feel lost or liberated? Labels are simply labels and nothing more. They provide a service and a disservice. The more we invest our identity into such labels, the further we move away from our true nature into the realm of the illusion.

To be label-less is to find freedom and peace. Have a glorious week, Veronika

Down at the FACTORY FARM!

Saturday Cuppa: Organic Hot Chocolate, Bluebell Bookshop Style.

Monday 26th February 2007

Girls wake an hour or so earlier than normal. Bethany decides to begin her violin practice by standing outside my bedroom door playing Morning Has Broken. She continues with Ode To Joy downstairs in the dining room. Joy is the last emotion coursing through my veins this morning.

Take one mouthful of breakfast and realise that my stomach is no place for food.

Try hard to hold back tears. Eliza hugs me.

A few months ago Bethany decided she wanted to try school. The plan was that she would start in September for her first year of secondary education. However, as time ticked by she felt that it would be better to try primary school first so it wouldn’t be such a shock.

Two weeks ago we visited a local village school to see if there were any spaces…a Church of England school with about 170 kids. Eliza opted to stay in the car as she was, quite frankly ‘never going to school’. She used a similar tone when she was five to say “I’m NEVER going to wean!”

We were there about 10 minutes and then I took the girls off to Bethany’s music lesson. Within the space of about half an hour Eliza decided that she too would *try* school.

So here we are, the first day of the second half of term. And both girls are in their uniforms ~ pleased as punch ~ hair clean, and ready for whatever the day will bring.

Watch their faces as we arrive at school. Eliza’s as white as a ghost. Bethany tells me she’s really nervous. I tell them both to breathe really deeply as it will help ease the butterflies.

Paul and I help get the girls into their classrooms. Eliza’s teacher recognises that this is difficult for me even though I’ve managed to smile and not let any salt water down my face.

Drive away. Horrid feeling!

Drop Paul at work. That’s it then, my family all ‘disposed of’ for the day. My first holiday in parenting in 11 years. Wow. Should be excited. Feels crap.

Take issue 21 of The Mother to some local outlets. First stop, a vegetarian restaurant and watermill 1.5 miles from home. Second stop, Bluebell Bookstore. Derek asks me how I am.

TEARS….bwaaaaaaaaaaaah

Feel like I’m three years old. Not good. Where’s MY mother when I need her?? Apologise for pathetic performance. He makes me the best hot chocolate in town. At least it’s organic. Warms and comforts the physical body, ache in heart as large as ever.

Head to health store with the rest of magazines. Weird in the extreme not having my shadows deciding which treats to buy. Leave without spending a penny. Unheard of.

11.30am…they’ve been as school 2.5 hours. Feel likes a lifetime. I wonder about parking over the road from school in lunch break to see them playing. Change my mind. Feels too much like playing detective. Need to learn to trust my way through this momentous change.

Drop by to see Paul at work…his boss asks me how I am.
This time I know better than to open my gob.

“You’ll be suffering withdrawal symptoms.” Too bloody right!
He’s bright enough to know I’m about to break down, and leaves me with Paul.

Get home at noon. Three and half hours till I can see their faces again.
No-one to make lunch for. Still not hungry myself. Bought tasty treats for girls’ lunch boxes…a bit of mother-love in their day. Paul commented yesterday on the military-style operation of my lunch box creations. “They won’t eat all that!” “I don’t want them to starve.” I say with a glare that makes it clear I know what I’m doing. The girls end up proving him right. Pa! Frustrated because it’s no more than they’d normally eat in the course of a day.

Mail arrives…a review book called Our Stolen Future. How bloody apt! There’s a picture of a babe in utero on the front cover. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. More bloomin’ tears.

12.30pm Bethany’s teacher phones. She must know I’m on tenterhooks as the first thing she says is “there’s no problem”.

They’re having a bread tasting afternoon. She tells me where all the breads are from. Mostly made by the Village Bakery 4 miles from here. Everything from there is organic and I know the ingredient list like the back of my hand. And then she adds that there is stuff from the supermarket ~ pitta and naan. Tell her naan bread is full of e numbers. Suppose I should have said that we limit wheat and er, did she have breads from other flours? Shut my mouth instead but kick myself for not having mentioned it in enrolment notes.

Thank her so much for checking in with me. Poor teachers are probably living in fear of me after reading the NOVEL that arrived with girls.
Sigh…this is a huge thing to suddenly have someone else so totally responsible for my children for a big chunk of week.

Short amount of time to get house tidy, meditate, get in an hour’s walk in bitter wind, and then pick girls up. We’ll have dinner and then I’ll take Eliza to her first ever Scout group. Seems silly now, but I’d decided it would be a great way for them to make friends, but that was before the school idea came up.

Keep reading words from Kahlil Gibran’s ‘Children’.

“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the Infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.”

Yell over my shoulder to the Archer…" hey there, You, enough of the bending! I’ve got feelings you know! Paa!"


3.35pm Two sets of familiar arms around my waist. Yum. Eliza looks shell shocked. Bethany is screeching with delight. “I HAD A BRILLIANT TIME!”

THEY LOVED SCHOOL! They can’t talk quick enough about what they did, and who their new friends are. All their fears about not knowing enough have vanished. Eliza was well pleased with knowing why certain addictions like smoking or chocolate aren’t good for you. Bethany’s favourite bread was naan bread. E Number City. At least I laughed instead of crying. There’s hope for me yet…

Bethany asks if she can get the bus home instead of coming with me. Obsolete mother already!

4.30 Eliza helps me make us all a vegetable juice.

5pm early dinner then I leave for Scouts, though would rather snuggle by the fire with Paul. The theme at Scouts was fitness. They brought in an aerobics instructor. This was not what Eliza needed after a long day at school. Poor thing! She found the whole atmosphere painfully noisy too (without the aerobics).

8pm Quick lavender bath, and girls are in bed.

Numb out in front of tv..and eat… Eating for emotional hunger. NOT GOOD, but tomorrow’s another day. For better or worse.
Ten years without tv and now using it as a crutch. Standards are slipping quickly girl!

Tuesday February 27th

Girls sleep later than yesterday. Thank you God! Both wake up tired. I’ve heard many stories of families starting each school day fighting because of the stress. Am grateful to be organised. Everything’s ready the night before so all girls have to do is eat and get dressed and do their hair and teeth.

First morning going to school on the bus. My big nine year old looks so little and vulnerable when seated up high in the bus.

Had often wondered if the girls went to school at 4 years of age if we’d have settled into the village more easily; if being at the bus shelter with the others each morning might have created a different dynamic.

I’m touched by the genuine concern shown by the other mums as I move back from the bus with tears in my eyes. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”


9.47am get ready to leave for town for organic fruit and veg stall in open air market. It’s pissing down. Times like this it’s tempting to abandon principles and drive to Tesco for sheltered shopping!

Market stall run by a gorgeous family. Janet home-educated her five children until the oldest one decided, at 11, to try school. Her daughter Lucy now works at the market and said home education was great, but she went to school at the right time.

Promise myself a half hour in café for standing in the rain.
Think of my girls. Are they happy? I’m not. Need to change my thoughts.

Can’t help but wonder if all the effort I’ve put into TM in the past five years, had been channelled into the girls would they still be here today, or would the friendship thing always be the stumbling block unless we lived less rurally? No place for regrets though. Life’s too short for that.

Having to re-examine my identity. I’ve been a full-time mother for 11 years and now what am I? In human terms, that is, for my spiritual essence hasn’t changed. Time is my own to some degree now. I’ve never been the sort to just plump up the cushions; besides, the cushions are covered in cat foot prints, so I don’t really want to elevate their status to give my life purpose.

Wonder how the magazine will change now my kids are in someone else’s care. Found myself writing an article in my head about healthy school lunches. Bloody hell! Is this what it has come to? Lunch boxes!

Cancel cafe idea. Heart not in it.

House is freezing...but with no kids around, it feels pointless using up the firewood or wasting electricity to put a storage heater on for just me. Washing the dishes in hot water will warm me up.

Had planned to use my new found time…acres and acres of it…to write …but that’s the last thing I feel like doing. I need time to integrate how much this is impacting me. Us…

Paul’s work hours change from Monday meaning he’ll not get in till about 9.30, 5 nights a week, and 8 pm on another night…only having Saturdays off.

It was bad enough last year him working these hours, but at least the kids saw him for four more hours a day. Something has to change. I’m determined about that. A new source of income is needed. Family comes first.

I wonder about this new found freedom of mine. At least with Empty Nest Syndrome you can go off and sail the world or have a complete life change that works, but I’m only free between the hours of 8.30 and 3.45pm. I hardly get started and then I’m thinking about dinner and next day’s school lunches. Am also aware that although it feels like I have physical freedom, I’m not feeling free emotionally. Until I can find a way to be at ease in that department it will affect my physical being too.

Conscious though, of the need to find a way of making more use of this time. Wait at bus shelter at 3.45pm. One of the mums sits next to me and affirms how difficult this process is. She’s a school teacher and says how hard she finds it with the kids being disruptive. My girls have complained about this already…how some kids just keep misbehaving and that the teachers are forever having to stop what they’re doing to tell children off.

Girls step off the school bus looking like thunderclouds. Turns out school was great, again, but the kids were absolutely awful on the school bus.

Unpack lunchboxes to find Bethany’s eaten little more than a mouthful and had no water. She ‘forgot’.

Have Major Mother Meltdown moment (or several!!). Really not a pretty sight.

Then Bethany’s on the phone to a new friend and in a nano-second has organised to catch a different school bus tomorrow to go to her house for the afternoon. I realise I’m in some sort of PMT accelerator mode, but surely I’m not over-reacting by at least wanting to meet both the child’s parents first?

After ridiculous and unnecessary histrionics on both our parts, we agree to make it the following week and the girl could come here, then I’d drop her home afterwards AND meet the parents.

Eliza feels it unfair because Bethany’s class is making bread AND going swimming! Why don’t grade four kids get to do that?


7pm Speak with Nikki, a home educating mother of five children and former school teacher, and one of my lifelines in this crazy world. Her kids went to school, and then came out, but she knows the heartbreak I’m going through. She’s one of the few people not to dismiss my feelings. Why can’t people just ‘listen’ rather than try and ‘fix’ things up? Our culture is so dysfunctional. We don’t allow people to be vulnerable for even a moment without an intense need to make them ‘sit somewhere in the middle’ of the emotion range. Can’t have anyone’s feelings rocking the boat in case everyone falls in the water and drowns! That’s what it’s all about really, isn’t it?

This week has felt a bit like when you have a miscarriage, and the loss is so much more than physical, but all anyone can say is “oh well dear, it wasn’t meant to be”. As if that’s supposed to make you feel better? Agghhhh

Febuary 28th 2007

Wake up feeling more at ease. One the third day She rose. Ah yes, the resurrection only comes after the crucifixion!

Bethany shows me her spelling words. Eliza’s nose put out of joint as she wants me to ‘test’ her with spelling.

Have breakfast together, and Paul and I walk girls to the bus shelter and wait to get them on the bus. Paul goes to work.

Get phone call from home edding friend in Australia…We talk for ages! Can’t remember the last time I had a long phone call with anyone that didn’t involve kids demanding food or me to get off the phone or whatever… Time is luxurious.

A lot more conscious of our two cats now that they’re the only living things in the house apart from me and houseplants. The lazy-arsed critters are starting to bug me…all they do is sleep. I can not see how they can justify calories burnt and amount of food consumed.

For seven and half years this house of two bedrooms has felt tiny for four humans, cats of various numbers and a magazine construction zone.
Now, in the silence, the space seems vast. I feel like I’m living in a mansion. Funny how quickly perspectives can change.

I’m eating today without any sick feeling in my tum. Just cleared off a bunch of lychees. All to myself! Hey, there could be an upside to all this stuff.

Weather is bitterly vile. Not remotely tempted to go outside for a walk. Am tempted, however, to curl up in bed with hot water bottle, hot drink and a great book. But don’t. Get to work on issue 22 of The Mother. Funny how easy some jobs seem when your work environment is one of silence rather than juggling a family’s demands. Could make The Mother magazine a weekly publication if the girls stay in school. Mmm, maybe not. Did promise Paul I’d have no excuse not to keep on top of the housework. Have come to the conclusion that I’m not the only one to make mess around here. Once I’ve tidied, nothing moves till the other three humans get home. Turns out I won’t need a housekeeper after all…

Had another long phone conversation this afternoon…no interruptions. Complete focus. Weird.

3pm Find myself singing. Singing? Happy. Dancing around the kitchen with fat lump of cat in my arms. Think he’s happier by the sound of his purr.

Make banana and sunflower cookies for girls’ lunchboxes.
Pick them up at 3.45 from the bus about 50 metres from our cottage. They’re NOT happy about the naughtiness on the bus. Ironic given the bus has a guardian to stop misbehaviour!


Thursday March 1st

My appetite is back. I’m coming to a state of acceptance. Paul does maths tuition with Bethany. SATS exams in 8 weeks or so.
Eliza plays piano, then we walk them to the school bus.

I know my detractors will be clapping their hands with glee that the girls are in school. People tend to think you’re a Smother Mother by wanting the best for your kids in terms of home education. We have little understanding, culturally, of how our children learn. The factory farming approach of most schools is so inadequate for children’s needs. Even those parents who can see that often just go into denial, as they feel they’re too small to question the system and feel home education is too big a leap.

Two girlfriends phone today and I indulge in long chats. Ah, this is the life.
Do manage to write a feature article this afternoon, not done that for a while. If I wrote an article a day that’d well and truly keep me out of mischief.

Have been mentally plotting how to rearrange our life so I can find a FABULOUS human scale school for my daughters, something that will keep them and their parents happy. It’s not here in Cumbria. But where is it?

Take girls to piano and violin lesson after school. Bethany changes her mind about joining Scouts. She feels knackered and is wanting to take her first grade piano and violin exams. Clearly this is all too much with SATS and high school preparation as well.
Girls tell me all about their school day. Both still very frustrated at how much time is spent by the teacher having to tell kids off for misbehaving. Bethany was anxious because an aide was trying to explain something to her but she couldn’t concentrate because of the racket being made by the other kids. Eliza says she spends most of the day with her hand in the air wanting to answer or ask questions, but she doesn’t get asked.


Get home, have dinner and it’s time for bed.

Trouble in paradise. I get letter from head teacher ticking me off about my letter re: my zero tolerance approach to bullying. I’d heard she could be patronising.

One village mum once was at the school complaining about bullying and was told ‘there is no bullying here’. And the mum said, yes there is, the teacher is a bully. Ouch. Same person told her that in order to treat lice she should shave her daughter’s bum length black locks off.

Dentist appointment tomorrow…lucky for him there was no garlic in my dinner!

Friday March 2nd

Only four more weeks till end of term…
Eliza’s upset because Bethany won’t be at school at lunch time due to swimming lesson and Eliza’s friends eat at a different time because they have school lunches.

Find out the school children don’t have anywhere to sit for their morning and afternoon tea breaks and so my girls are skipping that meal! Who can blame them when they’re not allowed on the grass in winter and when the boys dominate the playground field with football? The girls have been raised eating meals quietly at the table. Food consumption and appreciation is a sacred act, and now for 15 eating times a week they’re inundated with loud noise and inappropriate eating places.

Bethany forgot her PE gear yesterday and couldn’t join the class. Forced to sit on cold cement. I’m ropeable when I find out.

Paul used to joke, years ago, that the local school teachers were lucky that our girls didn’t go to school as I’d be up there every day complaining about something.
Thing is, that’s how I feel now. I’ve not been up, but I do have a hell of a lot of puncture marks on my tongue.

What do I do? Suppress all my feelings? Accept the system is bigger than me? Say goodbye to 11 years of relatively conscious parenting?

I have three fillings fixed and dentist does a fab job of sandpapering some rusty bits off my front teeth. I’d figured the only option was the £500 bleach job ~ YUK! Bless him, he didn’t even charge me and reckoned bleaching wouldn’t have sorted the problem. I love it when I meet honest and authentic professionals.

Eliza steps off the bus upset because Connor (the one considered by all the kids to be the worst boy in school) has chased her the whole morning, lunch and afternoon break. I asked if she told a teacher and she said that the person said ‘oh, he annoys everybody’. That’s it then?

Bethany had a similar attitude from her teacher about being chased. “Just ignore him”

The information the school sent me in reply to questions about their bullying policy, is a load of crap, quite frankly. Clearly something which has been cut and pasted from somewhere else, as it isn’t what is happening in the school

Eg
Playtime code of conduct
Playtime should be enjoyed by all children without fear of injury or upset caused by other children.

Use of force policy
All members of staff are authorised to use force to control pupils’ behaviour. (Glad they got the apostrophe right there, as it was misused in another official school form ~ doesn't inspire confidence in their teaching ability).


Saturday 3rd March
Attention Deficit Disorder
Enjoy family cuddle in bed which the family outgrew years ago. Squished like sardines, happy moment deteriorates when Eliza starts expressing that we must love Bethany more because she’s getting special attention (Paul spending time to help her with maths). Whole morning turns to crap as this upset goes on and on and on. Cuddles and words don’t console.

Eliza has been coming home with silver stars and ‘good girl’ stickers. We haven’t pursued a praise/punishment system for their childhood. Getting stickers for putting chairs away seems rather odd. Whatever happened to humans contributing to the smooth working of a situation because that is what their heart inspires them to do?

I leave this week older, but don’t feel wiser. Me, more than anyone, wants my children to grow, thrive, explore, feel challenges and enjoy life.

Puncture marks in my tongue aside, I do have faith that my children KNOW that if school, at any point, no longer feels right for them, then they have the option of withdrawing. Most children don’t have that choice.

From a free range childhood, my girls are now in the FACTORY FARM. And what do we know about factory farms?

They’re unethical.

They don’t consider the individual needs of the inhabitants nor meet their biological needs....

and their sole purpose is profit and quantity, not quality.

I can’t help but think of all the letters I’ve had over the years from mums who’ve read my articles on our home education experiences in The Mother…and who took their children out of school as a result. Have I/we let them down? Or have they now found their feet?

As for our family, I’ll scour the country looking for a human scale school which works for all of us. In the meantime, I need to breathe deeply and TRUST.

Writer's Block

Saturday Cuppa: Dandelion Tea


I wouldn’t dare dream of turning up here on a Saturday morning to say I had writer’s block. My assistant editor, Anna, would throw Maltesers at me. Actually, no, she’d eat the Maltesers and stick pins in my editor’s photo instead. You see, it wasn’t that long ago I gave her a hard time about ‘no such thing as writer’s block’. I’ve said this to various writers of TM when a due date looms, or as more often the case, then passes, and no words of wisdom have arrived in my inbox. "Just write" is what they tend to hear from me rather than understanding words of compassion and comfort. They might even imagine the sound of a whip cracking too.


Usually by Friday night an idea has taken seed in my head for writing about on Saturday morning. Yet here I am this morning and feeling somewhat uninspired. It’s not as if nothing’s happening in our life… The truth is our whole family is sitting on the crest of a major life change, but I’d rather write about it next Saturday when I’ve had some time to reflect.


I’ve also been doing rather a lot of writing lately and have written a book which is just about ready for pruning with my editorial shears. Snip, snip, snip. Editing your own work makes the process of writing seem like a piece of chocolate cake!


With The Mother magazine now bi-monthly I’m more confused than ever! People will often say “Oh, I love so and so’s article in the current issue” and I scratch my head because the ‘current’ issue to ME isn’t the one they’re reading, but the one I’m working on…Well, right now there is one just leaving the printers and it is NOT the one I’m working on, nor is the one our subscribers are currently reading. Talk about a mind-juggle! I have the next four colour covers in front of me and I find it astonishing how the ‘same’ magazine takes on a unique identity with each issue depending on the tone and texture of the articles, and the photography and artwork used. This is such a position of honour, being entrusted with the words and images of others.


Much like my theory that the best way around a problem is through it, so too is the approach of conquering writer’s block. Imagine it like a child’s toy block with letters on each side. Reduce the image in your mind until it becomes the size of a pin head, then finally invisible. Stamp on the spot where it was… and then get writing.


There are many approaches to writing. Some people do the slow and steady measuring-each-word like grains of sand through an hour glass. They feel them, hear them, taste them… and then, like Security Guards, dare to let them onto the page after they’ve bodily searched them from top to bottom. And verified their passport! This works for them. Personally, I’d find it agonising.


I need to get the words out of my head as quickly as they form. They bubble up like a spring and the incessant chatter needs to be channelled out, rather than artificially forced to go on simmer and then strained before consumption. The post-mortem on word quality and writing style can come later. The essence of the message has to be expressed without the strangulating tones of perfection changing its emerging shape. I'm so grateful to be able to type as quickly as I think. I now find it agonising to write anything other than a shopping list by hand.


One thing I am learning after five years of editing The Mother (our 5th anniversary this month! Note to self: find someone to celebrate with…) is not to be so precious about my words. My last editorial (as in the one coming through your door shortly) was, in fact, the third editorial I wrote for that issue. It wasn’t that I was unhappy with the previous two topics, it was simply that my mood changed. It is actually quite liberating to ‘scrap’ a whole page of writing with the delete button and to start again. For me it captures the essence of abundance; the knowledge that there are in infinite number of words and equally, no limit to the number of times we can weave our stories. If we fear writer’s block, if we actually give it power, we end up creating a whole set of blocks!


I’ve read a LOT of birth stories in this past half decade, and the one thing that always strikes me about this incredible experience of bringing our babies into the world, is how few women can sum up the experience in 1000 words. What tends to happen though, is rather than reaching into the core of how their baby’s birthing day impacted on them, we tend to hear lots of irrelevant information. The birth story becomes a narration of what was happening around the mother (midwife eating sandwich, midwife looking at clock, mother-in-law tapping the table) rather than what she was feeling, thinking, experiencing. And it strikes me that this isn’t so much about whether or not someone is a gifted writer, but the very nature of our society being about ‘external influences’. We’re simply not encouraged to look within, to search for the meaningful experiences and savour the rich moments of our lives. When the very motto of our culture is ‘acquisition’, then unless we turn our back on unnecessary consumption, we’ll find it a challenge to remember and really KNOW that less is more.


There are so many ‘external’ images and ideas that can be used to overcome writer’s block, but the essence of the message has to come from within us. That feeling of “I can’t write” should be interpreted as “I haven’t gone within”.


And to truly enjoy life we have to go within, deep within, or we risk a superficial, un-sustaining existence.

What mid-life crisis?

Saturday Cuppa: Blackberry and nettle tea

Love is like playing the piano.
First you must learn to play by the rules,
then you must forget the rules
and play from your heart.
~ Unknown

Young Love

Bethany received a Valentine’s card this week from a male friend…

After doing her initial squeal of delight, shock and total joy she kept asking why he sent her one given that a few years ago when she sent him one he was NOT happy. “Ah, honey, that’s boys for ya!” I didn’t remind her that at the time her declarations of undying love were probably not really what he wanted to hear…

The Secret

Watched a great dvd this week called The Secret. If you’re new to the Law of Attraction, or simply want a great reminder that we each create our reality by the thoughts we think (that we truly are magnetic), then try and get hold of a copy for yourself.

It’s available in the UK from www.artofchange.co.uk

Self-worth

I spent yesterday afternoon with an artist friend. She’s so talented ~ painting, drawing, sculpting, anything arty, she can do it, and do it brilliantly! She never believes me when I tell her how amazing her work is. I say work, but she doesn’t do it professionally, and barely lets it out of the cupboard as a hobby.

Her husband shakes his head in disbelief too. How can she not see the talent?

She’s choosing to stay safe, rather than risk ‘failure’, and in doing so misses the chance to completely blossom. To live her truth.

About five or so years ago I came across Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. It is designed for anyone wishing to ‘heal’ and recover their inner artist whether that art be of writing, weaving, knitting, photography, dancing, pottery, drawing, sculpting… art is about creativity and manifests in so many ways. It might even be in the way you design your home and arrange your furniture and belongings.

Both Paul and I found it incredibly transforming and it is fair to say The Mother magazine was a result of that ‘recovery’ for me. I also discovered a love of writing lyrics. Essentially the exercises strip away at false beliefs and allow us to move forward.

The course is designed to be done over 12 weeks. Paul got to about week ten and became too busy to continue because his singing took off professionally.

How often do we sabotage success because we fear failure? And what’s failure anyway? One person’s failure is another person’s success. What I have considered in my life to be a failure had others raising their glasses with complete appreciation. One of the things I considered to be a great success in my life went unnoticed by a close friend for about two years before the light finally went on and she said, “That was really a big deal for you, wasn’t it?”

My ten year old daughter Bethany has more artistic skill than I do. She’s always had an eye for detail. I can see pictures in my head, but transferring them from my brain, through my arm, and onto paper…well, it just doesn’t happen! Bethany has just learnt how to draw cartoons this past week and I’m amazed at how quickly she’s got the hang of cartooning.

My artist friend hides her talent in the cupboard and I’m desperate to shine a light there. Gifts aren’t meant to be hidden, but shared with the world.

We’re both celebrating our 40th birthdays this year ~ a time in our lives when the insecurities of childhood should be well and truly gone. A time when we stand in our true power, ready to embrace the world and display our talents. Will we or won’t we? Have we been so brainwashed by messages in childhood that we ‘weren’t good enough’ that we’ll not dare to risk?

In astrological terms, we’re both in the years described as the Midlife Crisis. They are the “shock ‘em, roll ‘em and shake ‘em” years. (It used to happen a bit later in people’s lives but hits most people now between about 36 and 44 ~ can’t remember which planets have made it so…) The planets don’t control our life as such, what they do is provide specific ‘energy’ to have us looking at particular issues which, if addressed rather than denied, allow the layers of false conditioning to drop away.

It’s a time of immense change. It hits everyone. We can’t escape it, but we can use the cosmic energies which pull and tug at our life to become more of Who We Are...to let go of inhibitions, to finally say ‘hey, this is me, this is why I’m here, and I love the dance of my life!”

It’s called waking up to our authenticity. Crisis happens only when we resist change. Of course, the midlife crisis wears different clothes for different people. It may appear in the areas of love, public life, career, hobbies, health, law, identity, friendships, communities, sexuality, affairs, children, spirituality, family, siblings/peers, money. It may be more inner change than outer change, sometimes so subtle that it isn’t even perceptible, but there’s no escaping from it. The sole (soul) purpose of this time is a second chance to make your dreams from childhood come true.

Bethany felt fear big-time yesterday (explained fully in a blog about a week or two from now) as a step towards a dream she has had for a little while. I explained the idea of ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. I have my own fears around the situation she’s going into and when I was talking to Paul about it he said that he tends to ‘mentally shelve’ such fears, whereas I fall into mine (surrender/embrace) and march in whatever direction I deem to be the appropriate way. The best way around a problem (or fear) is THROUGH it… [best to take a crash helmet though!]

My mum used to encourage me that if I ‘trusted’ and jumped off the cliff, the angels would catch me. I don’t necessarily recommend having a mother who gives that sort of advice [grin], but it has helped me do so many things I simply wouldn’t have done otherwise. I closed my eyes and stepped over the edge…and you know what? My mum was right!!

A friend of ours read the book Feel the fear and do it anyway, by Susan Jeffers, several years back, and asked my husband, “Did Veronika write that book?” It made me laugh because I could have written the book! Even as a young child I’d just step right into the fear and realise ‘hey, this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be’. So things like public speaking, which have most people running a mile, I discovered right from about the age of eight weren’t so scary once you just got on and did it. I loved getting up in front of the whole school (about 300 kids) and reading out notices, sports results, etc. As a result, I rarely get nervous. And of course the more you practise stepping into fear the better you get at taking the first step. It’s that first step which is always the hardest.

About twenty years ago I did a fire-walking evening. It was fantastic. I’d be lying to say that I wasn’t scared. But you know what convinced me to walk over burning coals? Seeing a five year old girl dancing on them! I just KNEW that if she could do it, then I had no excuse. It was one of the most empowering experiences of my life. I repeated the experience a couple of years later just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke!

My guiding question when stepping into the unknown is “what’s the worst that can happen?” and things really are never that bad, are they?

Humans are such incredible creatures. We’re so powerful, capable of so much. So much good, so much evil. It’s all a choice. And so it is with letting our light shine; stepping into our power. We have to CHOOSE to do so.

I stand in awe of my artist friend, that she is so gifted. And then I get so darn frustrated that she’s not making the most of this talent. I experience a similar frustration with my beloved, a very talented entertainer (formerly a professional singer, actor, radio presenter, voice-over artist, ventriloquist). His answer is ‘I’ve had my career’.

My attitude is ‘you’re 58, you’re not dead. There’s a big difference.’ I do see his point, but I sense it isn’t to do with what he’s had, but where he’s scared he might go if he overcame his fear. And what does he fear? Probably the same as most of us. That he might get rejected, might not be considered ‘good enough’. But I wonder, if we dig deeper, is our fear really more about what would happen if we succeeded? What would happen if we lived to our full potential? Where would it take us? What life changes might happen? What are we scared of losing in the process?

And me? I’m all drive and no talent. Except… Except somewhere within must be a talent of some sort because we’ve all been gifted. Each of us possesses the spark of the Divine, and such a Creative Intelligence lingers within our very being.

I’ve always been the proverbial jack of all trades, master of none. I’ve a CV as wide as the Mississippi … Me and my lusty appetite for change, variety, experience has meant that I have a deep need for seeing new sights. I can tell you, it makes life very interesting, but it holds no appeal for employers. But guess what? I don’t care! I wouldn’t write up my CV for anyone these days. There’s only one person I need to please and that’s me. I’m here to live, not to conform.

This is my year for pushing my self to find the inner gem, the jewel which is hidden amongst the rubble of inadequate self-worth. I remember distinctly when I was seven, looking across at the drawings of Colin, a boy next to me in class, and being stunned by how well he could draw. I am sure it was the moment I *decided* that I couldn’t draw…And guess what? I couldn’t draw to save myself. I embarrass stick figures with my appalling attempts to put a few lines together.

For now, my artist friend is my mirror. She’s showing me what our life looks like when we deny our majesty, when we don’t step up to the plate and wear the crown. Instead of shaking her and saying ‘look at you, look at what you can do, look at what you can be’, I need to say it to myself… I need to recognise what the ‘button-pressing’ is all about and to stop looking at the mirror and look within.

I love Nelson Mandela’s famous speech, written by one of my favourite writers, Marianne Williamson ( a teacher of A Course in Miracles).

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

This is the sort of powerful message that we should imprint into our minds. Something to stick on the fridge or by the loo ~ wherever you go to regularly (no pun intended) and will read daily. For we change our lives immeasurably be recognising the truths contained within. No longer will we be prepared to shrink back…

So silly really, when there’s room enough for all of us to play Kings and Queens, to go on playing servant to someone else’s dreams.

And you? What about you? Are you living to your fullest potential or sitting on idle?

Put on your dancing shoes syster (and bro!), slip on that crown, and live life for all it’s worth. If I can, ANYONE can!

The Naked Table ~ URGENT message for supporters of Home Education in the UK

Saturday Cuppa: Raspberry Leaf Tea ~ tighten up that uterus grrrrrrrlfriends!


This week’s blog courtesy of our dining table.

“They say walls have ears, well, I’d rather be a dining table any day. We tables get to be part of the action, rather than being mere onlookers and holders of secrets.

In my early life I lived in Bluebell, a beautiful bookshop in the heart of Penrith. Here I saw people searching for their dreams, satisfying their hobbies and searching for answers.

A few years ago I was given a free transfer to the Robinson family, here, at the cottage. There are, of course, down sides to being a dining table.

Mrs R, she’s the bossy one, seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable to dump a load of wet washing on me while she sorts things to dry on the clothes horse by the fire. For some reason they call the clothes horse ‘the blue and white thing’. The blue and white thing is mostly used for clothes drying, but for many years it spent most of the time being a major part of the Robinson children’s games, providing walls around castles and towers when a sheet was draped over it.

I also find it very demeaning that she’ll use me as clearing house, loading me up with all the rubbish and bits and pieces she’s collected from around the home.

She thinks nothing of dumping the whole week’s shopping on me while she sorts things out. Organic fruit and veg is all very well, but can’t they at least wash the dirt off the vegetables? Maybe I don’t look grand enough to be used just for eating? Not classy enough to even wear a fine lace cloth. She’d probably tell you it has more to do with the kids dropping food on it, or candle wax spilling, than because I’m not worthy. But you know as well as I do, that it’s easy to read things into other people’s behaviour!

My latest indignity since that new fat cat arrived is having cats jump on top of me! Hmphfff. I was not made for that! Anyone would think they were meerkats, acting all sentry-like from a look-out point.

Mrs R comes into her own here and promptly banishes them from the room with a few terse words. Her speciality. Then I have to breathe that tea tree stuff (her cure-all) as she smothers my face in it.

The fat cat, Chubs, thinks my carved legs are trees. He’s shredded me so much my pins are unrecognisable from my glossier beginnings. It’s the difference between new, sheer, silk tights and 20 year old wool tights with wool balls all over them. Not pretty.

Enough of the groaning. Life’s good here, really. Just yesterday the girls and Mrs R played scrabble and sipped lemon tea in my company. Mrs R tried to remain calm when she realised Eliza was fiddling ‘the books’ and rearranging numbers on the score sheet.

It gives me purpose to be part of the family in this way.

I’m made of wood and have a split from one side to the other, across my face. Some might say a scar. No longer am I young and smooth, instead I have fork marks. They’ll have been made by Eliza when she was younger.

Then there are pen marks deep into my wood. But then again, I’m not just used for dining. My primary role is the family ‘learning’ desk… as both girls learn from home, rather than at school. Here I see books on everything imaginable… the usual French, geography, history, Steiner maths, art, music, acres of drawing, etc., and then the more spiritual books and conversations around things like A Course In Miracles; The Way of Transformation; The Enneagram of Personality Types.

I hear the girls practise their instruments, and breathe in the tempting smells from the kitchen. Because the kitchen is the size of a postage stamp, they’ll often prepare things in the dining room so the girls can be part of the food making process, which they love.

Although I never get covered in a table cloth, not even a cheap gingham one, Mrs R. adorns me with flowers and a candle. When eight hands and four hearts join together as the family give thanks for another meal, I’m always at the centre of their gratitude. Their words are song-like:

Earth who gives us this food
Sun who makes it ripe and good
Dear Earth, dear Sun
By you we live,
Our loving thanks to you we give…

I love it, too, when they’ve friends for dinner and they scramble around with extra chairs at a table designed for four. Although I’m square, I create a circle of love when people gather around me. I have purpose.

In my years here, I’ve been part of many mailings for The Mother magazine, and a space for creating ideas - reading subscriber letters and enjoying photos from other people’s families.

Much like the fire place in the lounge room creates a focus, a centre, so I too bring a space and place for mindfulness. I am so much more than a face with four legs. Unlike Elvis, I have no less than a wooden heart. In my lifetime I’ve been witness and present to much laughter, many tears, promises and dreams.

Am I any different from you?”

***


Home Education in the UK ~ URGENT message

Make your voice heard today.
There is currently a petition on-line to retain freedom as home educators.

As home educators we believe our children thrive without the constraints of rigid schooling and national curriculum. We have, for many years, faced unfair scrutiny from the education authorities and social services. We believe the way we educate our children is the best for our children. If you are a UK home educator PLEASE consider signing it online today. Petition closes in March.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/HErights/ It's really simply to do, honest!

“At the beginning of November the Department for Education & Skills (DfES) Public Communications Unit (PCU) began to "leak" the news that DfES were planning a full public consultation in the New Year to review the regulations for home education. They described the planned consultation as looking at anomalies in the way that home education is treated, when compared with independent schools (for whom standards for education provision exist) and when considered in the context of Every Child Matters (a set of policies which seek to promote the welfare of children through provision of services to children in need.
DfES are considering introducing new law (changes to primary legislation) which would alter the legal framework which currently exists, and could include compulsory registration, compulsory annual meetings with LAs, and the definition of some kind of standard which would define "suitable" education [eg could include imposition of National Curriculum, powers to access children, see their work, test them etc].

The Consultation will therefore consider whether changes to the law would actually help these objectives. The Consultation will then lead to a decision as to whether a change in regulations about "suitable" education is required. If it is then new legislation would be fitted into the next education bill to go through, which could take a further 12-24 months, and be subject to the usual parliamentary processes where it would be subject to challenge.”
(some of above taken from http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org –
great new resource site)

THE NEED TO BE HEARD
The voice of parents, children and extended families needs to be heard if the freedom that we have experienced to date is to be our legacy to future generations wishing to follow their own unique educational philosophy. There are many courses of action open to the extended family of home education and its supporters.