On Children Kahlil Gibran
 Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
 They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.
 You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
 You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
 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. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
 For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Since I first read this book many years ago.. this passage on children stops me cold.. you may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you.. I so appreciate about what is unconditioned in children, it reminds me of my own unconditioned nature. Babies especially, I can see it in them immediately, they are free, they are not feeling separate, worrying about me or mine or lack..
So often I take my kids to the park and I hear moms of toddlers who are touching some kids toy.. that's not yours! They don't really care I often think..

Why do we need to teach separation and lack? From my perspective it's so much more important to learn from our kids, remember our own unconditioned reality, where we don't need to classify and categorize or label.. of course we can help our kids to navigate certain things, to focus on solutions, to empower themselves by honoring them mostly.

 There is such an opportunity for mindfulness in how we want to train our children, it's so important to honor who and what they are as we try to give them skills to have more flow as they go through life. The priority is to remember who they are: whole, complete and perfect, deep wisdom is within them, they know why they are here and what they are here to do on some level and my job is to remember this always. I need to trust that they have access to their own deep wisdom and continuously point them back to that as the guiding force.

To treat my kids with the same respect I'd give any other adult person as best as I can.. truly there are no small souls! Let your bending in the archers hand be for gladness.. this really speaks to me.. my experience of parenting has absolutely bent me.. it's shaped me, it's opened my heart in ways I could not imagine.. my children are here to teach me about unconditional love.. I have no doubt about that.. they are here to bring me back to the recognition of my own true nature, so sweet!

the game of unschooling..

I was so fortunate to meet a few families who were homeschooling before I had children. The kids impressed me, they were bright, well adjusted and had a sense of peace about them. When Reese was just 8 months old, I attended a 5 day homeschooling conference and listened to about 30 different speakers share. I was blown away.. again.. I was 34, I'd been around, I'd had 2 careers, gotten a Masters Degree, traveled and once again a whole new world opened up to me, just like with homebirthing, attachment parenting, co sleeping, not vaccinating, a whole world of choices opened up and once again I seemed to be strongly internally guided away from the mainstream. I listened to a speaker at the conference who shared that the two primary language arts were not reading and writing but speaking and listening. There are many people who are quite proficient at reading and writing as skills but they are not very good at really deeply listening and expressing their truth, being true to themselves, speaking up and being in integrity with their highest heart expression. I felt so strongly that children come in with a sense of who they really are, the fullness and greatness of who they are, they are here for a reason and somewhere inside of them they know what they are here to do and how they are to contribute. I felt that it was not my job to mold them as I see fit, but to see them for who they really are, see the perfection in them, what was whole, complete and perfect. My job was to listen to them, to love them, to provide a container for them to grow and flourish and thrive! This path of unschooling, homeschooling without a strict curriculum, giving my children space, freedom and time to pursue what they love, to choose how they spend their time, to allow a lot of time for play and exploration. with less direction and more inspiration and exposure. Our conditioning says we need to condition our kids, make them mind, teach them, mold them.. etc. and there is some of that that is beneficial.. but for the most part, I believe we need to celebrate that which is unconditioned in all of us, but more often expressed in them.. what is always free & open, our infinite potential .. Our children are here to teach us more than we are here to teach them. love this quote, it says it best, it's been a guide for me for many years.. by Kahlil Gibran “Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness. For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”

Evolution and the ever changing flow of life..

I've gotten inspired to breathe some new life into my parenting blog.. so here goes.. My boys are 12 and almost 9 now.. each year is full of new experiences for us, I keep learning more and more how to relax as a mom, how to trust my innate inner knowing, to appreciate my kids more deeply each day... and truly I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the clarity I had since before they were even born about what was really important: to spend time together, to honor and respect each other, to be very present and to see one another deeply at the essence not just at the surface. So many things influenced me along the way. I was 8 years sober and 33 years old when my oldest Reese was born, I'd been on a conscious spiritual path for 10 years, I'd done loads of therapy of all kinds, I'd had amazing healing in my own life, in my relationships, I'd transformed in many ways. I had been a lover of kids and babies (and animals) for most of my life, I got to spend every weekend with my niece (from age 2 mos to 2 years) for 2 years prior to my son being born, I was really ready to be a mom. I learned about homeschooling before my kids were born, I attended a 5 day homeschooling conference when Reese was 7 mos old, my eyes were opened, I was amazed by the homeschooled kids that I met, I resonated so deeply with how respectful and honoring it felt to let you children learn at their own rate and pace, to let them learn what was interesting for them, to not institutionalize them and put them in an environment where they were forced to learn stuff for 8 hours a day that they did not care about, be graded and rated and compared and labeled I was so drawn to want to be with my kids.. the thought of sending my 5 yr old off for 3-6 hours a day to let someone else teach him, learn with him, share all of his amazing discoveries with him was not remotely interesting. I'd had 2 careers and gone back to school, gotten a Masters degree, achieved and accomplished.. now I was ready to be a mommy full time. Here I am 12 years later and I still feel the same way! I still want to homeschool. I am still loving being with my kids, following and fueling their passions, discovering and delighting in who they are each day. Even though I've gone back to work in the last 6 months and our schedule does not look the same as when we played all day and traveled all the time, we are still homeschooling and spending tons of time playing and learning and growing together. My kids are thriving, I am thriving, life is delightful and I'm loving it.

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!