Noticing the amazing colors of life?

Listening to an amazing book with my kids, The Giver, I read it in 7th grade I think.
What rich dialogue we are having, this is the beauty of homeschooling and I'm cherishing this time with my boys.
A story about one solution to eliminate pain, suffering, war, violence, death, all the sorrow of life.. the cost for this is called sameness and it is the elimination of joy, love, nature, color, variety and individuality and choices.. but here's the catch.. the people in this culture don't know what they are missing..
One boy in the story is selected at age 12 to have this special job, no one here chooses their own job, or their own spouse, their children, they are given a job, based on their interests at age 12 for life. They request a spouse and children, they live with a spouse for the time of raising children and then they go to live with childless adults, they don't have sex, they take a pill to suppress these extreme feelings. All of this is governed by the rules, if they break the rules, they are disciplined and if it continues they are released. Jonas our main character is selected to be the holder of all the memories of the past, memories of all the things that the culture has taken away to offer a world of safety, predictability, sameness. He learns about weather, snow, animals, war, death, suffering, he learns that release is actually killed and he suffers greatly.
As Jonas's eyes are opened, of course he chooses free choice, life with pain and color, reality rather than lying and having ones emotions cut off.
As I listened to the story when he actually sees color for the first time, sees a bird, clouds.. he is in awe..
I started to ask myself .. how often am I in awe of the colors of life? all of the colors? in awe?
The sad news is that when I am caught up in my thoughts, my pain, my story, my limitation -like the culture where there are no real deep feelings, I don't notice the beauty of life, the color, the vibrance, the incredible aliveness of each moment. I don't notice the perfection of all of life because I am caught up in the limited descriptions and intense but ultimately passing experiences. These endless stories of what's what, how i feel, what i think, what's wrong, how much i hurt, who hurt me.. these stories are like the pills to make the urges go away, they cut me off from the vibrancy of life, give me a half life, seem to cut me off from the infinite expression of what I truly am.

it takes a village..

When we came back to Boulder in December... i've never been more aware of the value of my "village" ...
two of my oldest dearest mommy friends live here in colorado now.. my good friend Ali had just bought a house and was
planning on renting the back unit behind her house.. to us! we had a homeschool community here, i had a satsang community, an AA community, a dance community, great mom friends, both of the boys had made such good friends here.. they played sports, and we involved in many activities they loved.. combine that with the beauty of Boulder, the seasons, and the small town feel... it was an easy move.. parenting and homeschooling mostly on my own has been amazing and challenging, the support of a village and ideally a community of fellow inspired homeschooling families is so where i long to be be...

So we got to live next door to the Zeljo's.. an homeschooling family of 4 boys.. such a beautiful gift..
When I really boil it down.. the most important thing really is the village.. how rich is our relating? what is the quality of our friendships? I feel like it's my job to share my kids with the world.. to have a very rich experience with them.. which seems to be mostly about really knowing who they are, their innate beauty and perfection. To remember .. who I really am, who they really are.. beyond the current description of the moment.. big picture.. really remember the essence, this is the key to all really consistent joyful relating, the key to real love, it's the key to trusting in the unfolding..

the village is a metaphor ....for the model of trusting and relying on source, presence, well being, awareness, clarity, God, whatever you want to call this... that always is here, always on, fully expressing.. it's that on which we can always rely..
it takes a village.. it takes this tremendous trust in our own capacity to fully know ourselves, to recognize that all that we are just an expression of all that is .. so in this realization of what we actually are.. we are in unity/village awareness.. once more it's the work is within.. here first.. what is realized here can outpicture in our world..

Unconditional Love and Physical Education

LIfe learning is so different than the way we learned in school ... learning by subjects.. now we'll do science, math, english, social studies.. life really is not divided up like that.. it's all mixed up together.. and there are so many "subjects" that we did not cover in elementary school.. like how to love yourself and others.. how to live from your heart, to really know yourself, to live from your own internal guide.. how to listen to yourself, your own interior guidance, to really feel deeply into yourself and be true to that.. nope i did not learn that in school or college or church. I am trying to model this for my kids, to encourage them to tap into their own gifts and talents.. to give them the space, support and encouragement to even know that they do have unique things to offer and to celebrate that we all have offerings, gifts and the beauty is in the diversity.. not in us all being the same, comparing ourselves to each other and competing..
One of the best parts about living next door to the Zeljo family is that they have 2 wonderful things.. puppies and babies.. I love other peoples dogs and other peoples babies!! Who better to learn this most valuable lesson of unconditional love from than animals and babies.. huh??? It's been such a joy to share space with this most wonderful family, we are so grateful..
While it's not easy to live your whole life at the beach and then move away.. the mountains here in Boulder are a pretty reasonable replacement.. here's Luc rock climbing at Mt Sanitas.. that's physical education right.. ok cross that off the list.

Luc reads a book..

One of the most interesting parts of unschooling (flying without a curriculum) is wondering when you child will actually want to read.. don't get me wrong... there's necessary reading and well.... book reading.. Reese learned to read kind of when he was 5, he started reading (or memorizing) Yu gi oh cards.. he memorized 100's of cards, but he didn't pick up a book and read it till he was 8. or 9.. the book was Diary of a Wimpy kid.. it was Kaia's book, she left it in my car, Reese picked it up and read it.. in a day I think.. in the last 2 years, he's maybe read 10 actual chapter books.. not the hottest topic around.. of course Luc must copy everything Reese the magnificent does.. even resisting reading.. Reese once said.. when i told him we were going to the library.. NOOOO the library is worse than the dentist... OMG we laughed about that for months..
Well I am happy to report that Reese got the newest Dairy of a Wimpy Kid book for Christmas and low and behold.. Luc picked it up the other day.. and started reading it.. and he's only 7... so go figure he beat Reese by at least a year.

Ali my neighboor and I hosted a fun Science class for the kids.. it went pretty well.. we had about 14 kids, 7 of them were into the science (none of ours mind you.. actually the were doing Physics - making a sailing paper airplanes) and I had a ball doing Wizard to attentive other peoples kids, while my wild one's did their own thing entirely. Here is beautiful Gianni.. in the Wizards hat.
Yes there is a reason that we homeschool. They are freestylers.. in life.. reminds me of Luc when he was 4 and i tried to teach him to ski.. there we were on the bunny hill.. i am telling him to do the pizza (wedge stop) and french fries (straight skies), he was not having it.. "I am not doing pizza or french fries!" and off he would go down the hill, really fast, at the bottom he would spin around several times and stop. this went on all day.. an instructor skiing by took one look at him and summed it up with one word.. "freestyler"! Yeah i replied.. in life!

Parties, Aerial Arts and Knex

There's nothing better than packing up all your stuff and digging it all out 6 months later, it's like rediscovering your old toys.. All of our Legos, Knex, beads for jewelry, if that was not enough, there was all the Christmas gifts too.. remote control cars... such abundance.. Reese built some amazing swords out of Knex.. then of course we had a battle.. Most of the fun involves some type of battle, wrestling, tickling, some kind of game that we are playing.. currently Reese is very involved in Maplestory, Runescape is out, Magic the Gathering is in, Luc also likes Maplestory, but he also likes Club Penguin again.. we've also rediscovered all our board games, Settlers of Caton, & Florence. We pulled out art sets out cause we had to make Birthday cards.. for Reese who turned 11 in Jan, NIckie, our neighboor, and Jon Jon who invited us to a Zip line party.
Luc got to have a private session at Frequent Flyers an aerial arts studio in town.. He loved it.. we definitely want to take some classes there soon, what a great work out too.

January in Boulder

After an amazing Christmas, we hit the road for Boulder, we had a great 2 day drive, got very excited when we saw the snow and arrived on Dec 27th at about 3pm.. i had a friend (the best kind of friends.. they ones that show up and help you move!) meet me at storage, i got a truck, we got my bed, couch and coffee table out of storage.. and i was moving into our new place by 6pm.. It was impressive, me and Shawn moved a king size bed up stairs.. i felt very proud of myself. Our new little apartment is a cottage behind my friend Ali and Jon's house in North Boulder, they homeschool their 4 boys (11, 7, 2 and 5 mos) and they got 2 puppies for Christmas, what more could we want. Our place is 2 blocks from a great park and even more important we are 3 blocks from Gamers Guild where Reese can walk and play Magic the Gathering with other kids (and adults) everyday. Yes Reese has made good friends with Budge the owner, a dad of 3, who seems to love to play Magic with Reese every afternoon, Reese had died and gone to heaven!
Luc was very happy to reconnect with his buddy Eya, a friend we met 3 years ago here in Boulder, they are Lego and game fiends.. with big off the chart energy... friends are what it's all about!
We took a great trip to the Denver Botanical Gardens to see a very famous sculpture exhibit.. the kids were a bit perplexed at the giant abstract sculptures, but we still spent an hour in the snow freezing our butts off seeing everyone of the pieces and doing our scavenger hunt, we made totems, played with clay and of course spent time in the hot house garden room. playing chase..

Thanksgiving in Colorado, Christmas in LA

two weeks in Boulder got us fired up to go back to colorado.. they highlight for the kids was the endless play with Kaia, Noah, Conner and Ryan, Devin and Luka.. and that's just the start... the highlight for me was watching sunrises over Machintosh Lake, a definite spiritual experience! We had a great two weeks in Colorado and made plans to return here for several months, kids really wanted to do christmas in LA, so we spent 4 weeks back in CA staying with Judy and Grandma Lynne.. We made loads of Christmas crafts, Luc and I beaded many bracelets for gifts, Reese made earrings and necklaces, we spent christmas eve with Dean in his old house where his boys were born, david and suelyn came as well as dennis & claire. It was so nice to be with so much of my moms family!! Hope and Austin came for a short visit, but that was the best part of the day!! We got to spend lots of time with Kiki and Myev before the holiday, Luc and Myev did some cooking, decorating together. Chirstmas morning was awesome... Steve spent the day with the boys, Luc was building legos galore.. spaceships that we had to try to transport to Colorado in tact, boys got lots of great clothes for Christmas! Early the next morning we packed up and hit the road.
We arrived in Boulder on the afternoon of the 27th, I rented a truck, called a friend, got our bed and couch out of storage and we spent our first night in our new home in North Boulder. We rented a guest cottage from my friend Ali, so we were next door to this wonderful family with their awesome 4 boys.. ages 11, 7, 2 & 5 mos. they had puppies and a baby.. I was in heaven. Their boys love nerf wars and legos too.. what a gift.