natural parenting center

family...and other things

My mom's long time friend, Monika, came through town on her way to the desert and stayed for a couple of nights. We haven't seen each other in oh maybe ten years and so she has never met these two niblets. Monika has known me since I was six months old when she met my parents as they moved into her same apartment complex. We hiked the M while she was here and gasped at the Missoula fall colors below.

She is family. These kids now consider her a grandma of theirs too. Family is like nothing else. I'm so glad she came. 

Other stuff these days:

::Being in charge is working. I can feel when it begins to slip and I respond differently now. There are fewer questions in my voice and more confidence. It helps to read things like this (from a conversation between Catherine of this blog and Donna Simmons.

Catherine, who is in charge here? Are you following the inclinations and desires of these little girls or are they securely held by your strong intentions, your clarity of purpose and your conviction that what you are doing is right? Let me elaborate - by being in charge, on top of things, you can then truly understand what those little girls need and not have to ask them, not have to wonder, not have to doubt and thus invite them to come in and walk all over you! This is NOT about being authoritarian - it is about being the authority, about being the loving center of those little girls' universe, forming what they do and - this is CRITICAL - thereby understanding what they truly need so that in a meaningful and not chaotic way, their needs can be met, not simply their whims. One cannot meet a child's deepest soul needs if one is trailing after them wondering what is coming next (Donna).

 

::Both kids have horrendous coughs which came on right after we ran out of our fermented cod liver oil. Gotta order more asap. Keep that vitamin D pumping through our sun-starved veins.

::We are thinking Halloween with costume plans changing rather more frequently than I'd like considering I hand stitched (sewing machine broke down) this Robin Hood tunic.

Regardless of what the actual night's costume turns out to be, I have experienced enough pleasure watching this green-clad boy prance around to make every little stitch worth so very much. 

::Other crafting news...I tried needle felting and LOVE IT

::there are things happening in my heart, leaving me a little raw these days. I'm acutely aware of encouragement I've given others to live their truth, as I recalibrate my life to align with those things I've been ignoring. It's a way of being that requires much tenderness and care, along with a big dose of courage. May I remember to breathe and stay with what's here in front of me and I wish the same for you.

xo

mothering: an extraordinary project

When you are inspired by some great purpose, 

some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds:

Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction

and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.

Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, 

and you discover yourself to be

a greater person by far then you 

ever dreamed yourself to be.

Patanjali

In the every-day-ness of being with children, of stirring soup and washing sheets and sweeping and holding and reading to and wiping and negotiating and questioning and singing, I so easily lose site of what this is: an extraordinary project. I lose touch completely of the discovery of myself as a greater person than I thought. I face my own darkest, most vulnerable, wish-so-much-they-weren't-there parts of myself in the sharpness of some moments with these humans I adore so utterly. It is different than the rush of what work used to be. It is so much more and so much less at the same time. There are moments, though, when they are asleep and I take time to think of them, of our day together, when my consciousness does expand in every direction. It is when I sit still and notice what is here. It is this love which explodes something inside me. It is this love which places me in a new, great and wonderful world. 

It is this love.

It is this love.

This mother love is everything. 

Imagine giving some of this to everyone.

 

this place we love

We had the chance to spend the night at one of our favorite places with some of our favorite people and animals.

 

Going to sleep with the sound of the crackling fire in the wood stove and waking up to the rooster crowing and piles of bear poop outside the cabin. Being amidst organic farming as it happens, during harvest, no less. Playing in haybales for hours, holding chickens and riding ponies. This, we love. Some day....

october moments

I feel such a stunning array of emotions during this month of falling...

::delight breathing in deep lungfulls of moist, crisp air which tastes like the color orange

::blissful overwhelm with the abundance of apples, plums, tomatoes, potatoes, nourishment from the earth in every shade and flavor begging to be pickled, frozen, dried, somehow tenderly kept longer than just this one moment of ripeness

::spilling over gratitude for days like this past rainy sunday of cider pressing with friends, drinking in the golden brown explosion of fresh sweetness and laughing along the hours of turning the weathered crank and scooping bucketfulls of pomme de mush

::timid dread for the months of darkness ahead, bundled inside separate houses, each of us alone in our little world of children, struggling to convince chubby toes to wear tights and boots and layers and layers and layers

::fierce determination to keep us all healthy, already seeing that the forces of seasonal change are bigger than my dropperfull of echinacea, trusting that winter is an immune builder somehow

::excitement for holiday plans to drive north to be with family

::joyful for the creativity of making holiday things, starting already

::restless which seems to be a fall thing for me, resisting the earth's wisdom to call me inside myself, to embrace quieter rhythms, to trust the cycle of death and darkness and let that be too, instead wanting to flee on travel adventures, to shift and heave and demand even bigger changes, to shed old skins like the trees letting loose their leaves

::eager to celebrate and honour, like the leaves call to bring forth their most stunning display before they set themselves free of all earthly bonds

::sad to let go of the dreams of summer which never came to bear fruit

::and happy, to be here, feeling these feelings, riding the waves, with two strong legs and a beating heart with fingers that smell like pumpkins and apples.

musings

::yesterday, the gentle man who came recently to teach me about meditation called and asked to come visit to inquire about how my practice is going. i gasped a little on the phone since i've sat once since my "lesson". i noticed i didn't actually feel like a kid in trouble but felt cared for by his willingness to tend to me in that way. it was inspiration enough to sit last night. i wept with the relief of doing what matters so deeply to me but which i have been not doing, choosing to knit instead. which i also love. 

::the sewing machine started huffing and chugging today in a most disturbing way then quit working altogether in the middle of a peter pan tunic. i feel sad about that. i'm sitting here with a needle in my mouth, ready to stitch it up by hand after i finish this post.

::i'm wondering if we each have a well-worn groove (frequently referred to as a default) which either leans more towards loose and easy-going and chaotic or strict and structured and tighter. i wonder if our work as mothers is to widen our own grooves, maybe etch out new paths altogether. i wonder if that gives us more peace, that kind of flexibility. i wonder if we go back into our most worn grooves whenever we are tired and stressed and lonely. 

::i wonder why making things is so appealing to me. it has a hold on me. that's mostly what i gently bring myself back from while i'm sitting in meditation. i wonder if meditation and mothering are even possible together. i tell myself that it's harder because i'm mothering all day. i like moving and doing. i wonder why i think that's bad. or less good than sitting still.

::i notice how much bigger the response is to a post that shares my vulnerabilities. do you think we are all so hungry to hear that from each other? to not compare ourselves to others and feel rotten, but to see others and feel more accepting of ourselves? do we all need that so much? why, do you think?

::i also notice that i don't need to post a photo to say something. i wonder if it's better not to. 

::i'm shifting from putting up food to thinking about making things for winter holidays. creativity can be such a source of light as the darkness closes in. i am feeling those familiar fall feelings of discontent, especially after two long live-ins with women and children i love in recent months. i miss them. the nuclear family thing is lonely. so much stress on relationships, even with wonderful friends in the same town. it's not the same as living together with women. the village. i want what our female ancestors had. there is so much work to do in a house with children on our own. how is it for you?

 

the best part

of this blog, for me, is being in conversation with you. i am so grateful for everyone's comments from the last post and i hope you will join in the conversation there. some new questions have been raised where you might have some insights to provide some of us. the hum of connection...i so love this. thank you for being here and giving a part of yourself to the conversation. 

oh...and the photo? my goodness i love wool. do you? a friend came over today and showed me how to wash and block a sweater, i bought a half yard of boiled wool which is my new evening shawl, and i am knitting a hat made from hand spun yarn. ahhhh. thank you sheep. what do you love sinking your hands into?

and...i just read on this blog something that i LOVE...you can go there to check it out and the lovely lady there and, here is what her post said today...

NOT TO SPOIL THE ENDING FOR YOU BUT, 

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK.

 

Standing strong...a change in how I am mothering

OK. I've been working this post over in my mind not knowing where to begin and how to say what I want to say. It's a jumble and I feel vulnerable sharing it, but I want to. So many of you have become partners on the path of mothering and I want you to know.

My particular path seems so curvy. Maybe curvier than most, but I do want to avoid comparing myself to anyone else (not helpful) in this. I am also sure that I want to be friendly towards my past self and the choices I have made as well as friendly towards my future self and the choices that I will someday make. (Speaking of self-friendship, I am trying my darndest to get the link to work for the Magical Mothering Home Course, but so far I'm stumped. Stay tuned on that one...)

With all that said...here is the thing: I am a different mama than I have been up till now. If you haven't been following this blog, then you might want to read this post about my attempt to let my kids make their own choices about how much they watched on the computer. Then there is this more recent post about delving into food freedom. Much of my inspiration has come from Radical Unschoolers and when I look into what that appeal has been for me, it's the sensation of trust and the desire for a deeply caring and unconditional relationship with my children. A different way. Parenting without praise and punishment, coercion and control has been the core aim here.

Those experiments didn't work for us. At all. It is the three year old fireball who is showing me something that I need to learn. Her strong will was beginning to become dictator-like in our home, turning us all upside down and inside out almost daily.  When Elliott said to me a couple of weeks ago, you are just making me give that to her because she is crying!, I decided that something had to change. He was right. I was afraid of the power of her feelings. She was alpha dog.

It makes me feel awed by just how challenging it can be to remain centered and calm in the face of children's emotional storms because I am someone who has been more than a little devoted to this. (Remember Feeleez?) This is something that matters to me, something that I practice and preach. Alas, these littles are here to show us our blindness and my spots are as big as anyone else's, indeed.

So, offering up many choices, saying "yes" almost more than I could stand, tolerating chaos more than I liked and allowing allowing allowing was sort of a spiritual practice for me (to remain at peace regardless of outer circumstances) AND I did believe that it was good for these kids. I believed that they would know that I loved them through this, that they are equal members of our family, that they could have a say in most things, that their voices mattered and to know they are worthy.

Now I see things differently. I want them to feel loved and they are not equal to me. I want them to feel worthy and my voice is stronger than theirs.

I am in charge here.  

Several things have come together to urge me in this new direction.

::My sister's visit where she applied her exceptional design skills to our home and the utter delight and deep peace I feel and see in my children living in an organized and tidy home;

::Her challenge to me to let my kids see me get mad, to let myself feel angry, to match Saschy's intensity with my own feelings (We all bring our own everything to this mothering and I certainly brought my bundle of beliefs about anger being harmful.);

::The material from Chris White's Essential Parenting Home Course and The Field Center's Aligned Parenting Course sinking in over time, both of which express the importance of limits for deeper soul-full develpment;

::Words that I heard from someone I love which I wanted to make wrong, but couldn't "You know you can so No to your kids, don't you?";

::My increasing certainty about the profound impact of nutrient-dense foods on behaviour and overall well-being and wanting so desperately to give this to them as the foundation of a lifetime of robust health;

::The growing frequency of fury and rage from Saschy and my own exasperation and confusion about the ways she was expressing herself and her needs;

::Believing in the power of modelling and the intelligence of children AND wanting to just make my kids do things a certain way sometimes;

I saved this quote, thinking of writing this post today:

When you talk of seeing what is real, to me, there is an invisible reality behind the visible reality. What I think it's supposed to look like, I have to let go of,in order to see what it is. Jane Rosen

That is part of what was going on for me. I started to see what was really happening. Sugar doesn't work at all. Media doesn't work at all. These two things truly seem toxic. Too much choice doesn't work at all. Chaos and disorder doesn't work at all. Me doing everything doesn't work at all. For any of us. 

I also started reading a bunch of Waldorf stuff which resonates and gives me a set of beliefs that can allow me to be a firm guide, to set loads of limits and stick with them, to create a strong rhythm and to believe in consistency. Then, I had another helpful conversation with my sister who heard Kim John Payne (author of Simplicity Parenting which I reviews as he generously gave me a copy of his book). There is a helpful overview of what his talk on the Soul of Discipline was about here. He says those first seven years are all about creative compliance. COMPLIANCE! whoa.

All of these voices standing strong for children's healthy development and fulfilled potential gave me a way to think about discipline that I could stand behind. A way of being compassionate, empathetic, unconditionally loving AND firm, without rewards or punishments. I thought that I knew this stuff as a teacher all those years ago, a compassionate and firm teacher, I would say, but my goodness the journey is different with my own children.

So here we are. I have made friends with the word compliance. Sheesh. If you told me that even one month ago I would have thought you were nuts. What an amazing ride this is, isn't it? We just don't ever know what's up ahead and we can never, ever judge another or think there is one right way for everyone. 

It has been an interesting week. Lots of tears and struggles and adjustments and also a tangible increase in peace and calm with each passing day. Their play, the food they are eating, the rhythm that is emerging, it is all so fulfilling to me. Our connection hasn't suffered, it seems, and sometimes I've heard so many "I love you's" in the space of an hour that I can only believe they have been wanting this from me, needing me to be a more dominant alpha. 

One of the biggest challenges is to not say things as a question, but as a statement, with my voice going down at the end. How often I tag on "okay?" without realizing it. I wish you could be here to see some of the changes, and I'm also kind of glad that you aren't. Are you ever so thankful for the privacy of your own home as you mess about in this mothering thing, floundering more than you'd like? I sure am. 

There it is, dear friends. I am ever so grateful for this life, for the chance to be. It's almost too much, the vulnerability, the fear, the uncertainty. I don't know anything but this breath, and then it's gone.

Wishing you all so much love and a big happy thanksgiving to my people up north.

 

 

right now...

::i am a wee big sadly good-bye to warm sunny days of sitting outside and knitting, like this. 

::i am satisfied to have put the entire veggie garden to bed today, saying sleep tight to the seed children.

::i am grateful for a couple more farmer's markets which are exploding with harvest while thinning out with people.

::i am happy the fire season is over and papa is home again.

::i am tickled to look into the root cellar and see such a rainbow of jars, sealed up clean and tight, ready to offer themselves to us through the dark winter days ahead.

::i am completely shifting my approach to parenting because of several things which have happened and come to me in the last few weeks...excited to share more about this.

 

into the woods for a night

We went boldly into the woods to camp, me and these two little people I love, along with our dog and kitty. 

It's such an exhilerating thing to pack up a mini home and the necessary survival tools and go. When I lived in the Slocan Valley, a dear friend and backcountry ski mate who did big expeditions in the snow often said, the hardest part is getting out of the driveway. It seems that way. 

As we snuggled into the tent, furry friends and all, with the dark night surrounding us, I got nervous. Then I remembered what a meditation teacher recently told me about how the brain freaks out with anything unfamiliar, even meditative states which alter one's consciousness. The job of the brain is to keep us safe and it works well most of the time. Sometimes, though, the new places and experiences which ignite that desire to flee back to the well-worn arm chair, are what infuse us with the wonder and awe that we so long for. 

It's worth taking a chance. I let the fear be there, noticing it, resisting the urge to pack everything up to high tail it outta there, getting a little distance from that brain chatter, and then looked up through the peep hole at the cacophony of brilliant stars above.  

What treasures lay in nature, in being there with children. Even if they are not attending to each chirp in the trees, I feel that somehow it is all seeping into them, feeding every cell and softening their souls. They understand, helping me to remember, that feeling of the trees breathing and the water rounding out rocks and the ground snuggling up against seeds. They know even if they can't say it. I can tell by the shade of their skin.

 

in our kitchen

Interested in Natalie and Nathan's Parenting E-Course? Rachel Turiel at 6512 and Growing blog is giving away a spot for free. Go on over and check it out. Her blog is lovely! Good luck.

 

sourdough crumpets

Oh what a delight these are! I was just wishing for some kind of recipe that uses more sourdough culture because I have been loving making the bread using left over whole grains which are fermented from Cynthia Lair's Feeding the Whole Family. So...when I discovered this recipe in another favorite book, Full Moon Feast, I had to try it right away. Basically you take the culture, add a little milk, salt and baking soda, then melt some butter or lard (we used the last of our dear farmer friend's gift lard), spoon into mason jar lid rings in the pan until bubbly, then complete cooking in warm oven. 

So delicious! Even more yummy as french toast with this peach chutney and some homemade yogurt mounded on top.

The peach chutney was a combination of recipes from Nourishing Traditions and Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning. These jars are sterilized using a much less intensive method of washing with baking soda. I also tried one jar of a lacto fermented variety of peach chutney which has crispy pecans and raising in it. It smells delicious and after two days, we just put it in the fridge. It will last a couple of months in there.  This was the last of the peaches as the rest are all dried up, as it were, visually less than gorgeous but tastily, more dreamy than you can imagine.

roasting beets with garlic and fresh herbs

oh the vamatoes, as Saschy calls them. Dehydrating, roasting, turning into ketchup, sauce, freezing. The cacophany of color and scrumptiousness at this time of year nearly sweeps me off my feet. Though actually it lands me on my feet until the late hours each night. Gratefully and with gladness, feeling like a queen surrounded by glorious riches.

basil, chopping, tossing with salt, and immersing in olive oil. Love, love love learning these traditional ways of preserving the harvest. They are much less intensive and more alchemy-ish, with magic and mystery bubbling beneath the surface.

And peppers. Will you tell me any ideas you have for preserving these gems? So far, I am roasting them in the oven and that's as far as I've got. I was thinking of removing the skins and making one batch of roasted tomato/pepper sauce and then trying to put the roast peppers in jars preserved in oil with herbs. Other thoughts? I'd love to hear them. 

Most of this bounty has come from beloved farmers at our market who have set aside cases (and cases) of seconds for me. This means there is a spot or two on each, so easy to remove and a fraction of the cost. 

Oh...I also wanted to ask any of you for a salsa verde recipe, if you've got one. The bucket of tomatillos is awaiting. 

I love that these children get to see all this putting up of the harvest. Life, in all its rhythms, unfolding.