the present, gifted

This afternoon in the pouring rain I put on my raincoat and welly boots and went out to dig. I had this luxury because my kind dh took everyone swimming. A blissful two hours to do what ever I pleased. I surfed, I cried over something pretty lovely online and then felt in need of being outdoors, desperately so, despite the rain. I have this tree that I stand by, it's on the way to the vegetable patch and from it I can look each way along the stream and just breathe in every inch of greenness and dampness and musty end of Autumn. It's a good place to stand still, put my hand against the wet bark and feel the gratitude and endless present-moment of life. The earth and mist of the stream mingle to create a dankness and rich wetness that extends into the soil of the veg patch. It's standing there lost in the surroundings (a meditation I suppose) that I get little jolts of inspiration and those feelings of In The Moment Bliss. It's where I stood and begged the earth, my ancestral spirits, the life force within life (many many times, every day mostly towards the end of that pregnancy) to let me live through the birth of Esmé (I really did fear death so very much). It's where I stood this week and where the thought came to me seek health and you shall find it. In those exact words. It made me smile. I am health, I will look for that and be sure - I will find it.

I pulled parsnips and onion and a few leeks and then huge pale swathes of old nasturtiums, nettles, bindweed.... I flung most of it into the stream, to be carried off by the chocolaty-white-mud-froth that is the water right now.

I downloaded this new e-book from Shazzie and it's Good (and free!). Lots of stuff we should remember but seem to forget. A little treat to read and savour, like:

This eternal moment is a gift,
that’s why they call it the
present. Preoccupation with the
past and future causes anxiety.
Staying present creates peace within. Your
thoughts, feelings and actions in this moment
determine your quality of life.



Being in the present is something having children pulls you toward. You can resist and so resist *them* but that's just not a satisfying existence.

The boys and I made stained glass windows for the hall.

The Beauty gets busy setting up her play things.



In between rain bursts we get out and about and I try to take everything in with the wonder it deserves. Because it does. And when you forget you find life is reflected right back at you so that you do remember.

that school experiment

Turned out to be pretty shitty. Isaac had SUCH high hopes. He really did. I mean what home ed. child has not driven past a bouncy playground in full sun and not wanted to pop in for a play? Sometimes school does look enticing in that regard, especially if one is a particularly social child. Isaac is one of those. He chats to everyone, requires after their well being and recent activities, is polite and friendly and everyone oohhs and ahhhs over his good nature. Even I am astonished sometimes. He can't possibly get this from me, I am as surly as the day is long sometimes, I can be anxious in company and chat in overdrive, not much confident in myself... so it's a pleasant mystery and I try my best to model myself on him :) Even his casual swagger is appealing (but precisely because he has no awareness of self I think).



Anyway, back to point. His eagerness and willingness and openness immediately made him a target for ridicule in school. Naturally, painfully so. It was pretty shocking for him. But his bouncy and optimistic spirit confidently repeated that he wanted to keep going, that it would soon be different. Only it wasn't, not really. There was a general air of meanness abound in the dailyness of school life that I could tell confounded him and which he wasn't able to articulate his discomfort at to me fully. But he was unhappy about it.



Examples? Far too many.... A few: pushing, shoving and hurting for fun, erasing his work when he asked for help, being made to crawl and pick up pencils for others, playing in the sand pit and having someone smash his game up just because, missing him out in a game of ball over and over just because they could see he wanted to play, pushing him over everyday and pretending (while snickering) that it was an accident, not letting him take part in group work..... I could go on and one but won't. You can get the gist. His teacher was a fake smiley- nicey nice person who brushed and glossed over everything and just smiled my questions away and never intervened on Isaac's part despite his discomfort. Many times. So much mouth play and words about not tolerating bullying but finding that it was all just talk, actually. So many hours spent in over heated classrooms with synthetic fibred uniforms (ok, so he had organic underclothes and cotton trousers but his sweater was school regulation polyester) made him tell me he felt uncomfortable and bored and hot. He was tested but because his hand cannot yet transform his thoughts at school-spreed/neatness he was streamed into low groups and thus bored to tears. Literally. The testing failed him big time and made him frustrated. At home he was tired, grumpy, fought with his brother and was mean to us all. We all squabbled in the mornings, I shouted, I rushed I hustled everyone in and out of the car and house at breakneck speed to make it to the school on time every morning then spent the next few hours winding down. Frazzled, really. We had no time (or energy) for formerly enjoyed evening things - chess club, Beavers, Cubs, friends.... I couldn't take Felix to home ed. meet ups because I had to be available every day at 3.15pm. Every night was a rush to get food made, meal time over with, see dh quick quick, PJ's, bed because we didn't want to be tired again the next day. Then it would start, wearily, all over again.

Anyone fancy it?

Secretly I think I'd always wondered if he really might be missing out on something by not being at school (a stimulating engaging education, wonderfuly friends, great social experiences...). Now I know he's not.

Give me Home Educating ANYDAY. Any frickin day. Headaches, arguments, nagging, mess and late nights. Any day. Because there is a beauty to being at home that if you have not done it simply can't appreciate. A timeless aspect that once immersed is hard to articulate to others. An eating because it's hunger (not a bell), playing until the game drifts off into something else (not because it's a labelled slot of 'play'), crafting and art because it's an exciting in the moment passion that has to be played out. A walk because the leaves are whipping up in a frenzy and it looks so enticing. A float down the stream on a pallet of wood because the water is high and it looks so inviting. Making a cake, just because you fancy one. Writing a postcard to a loved one and posting it because you love them. Counting your pennies, getting excited and buying crazily priced foolish football cards (hey, that's just my opinion), and dong so with joy and because your money was earned and thus valued (caring for the chooks). Ten Pin bowling at discount price during the day with friends, swimming with your dad in the local pool on a quiet evening..... lying on the floor in front of the fire and doing nothing, thinking, dreaming and staring at the flames. Having TIME. We all have time this way. To be ourselves. To do what we like with our lives and be who we want to be without needing to 'harden up' because life's tough, we better get used to it now in the playground, bullying's every where. Well I don't believe that. And I don't believe we get to be stronger, kinder people by being ridiculed and put down and belittled and bored out of our minds, day after day. How does a person learn kindness, compassion, love, friendship if he doesn't experience it? Will he ever cope 'in the real world' if he isn't exposed to horror now, isn't toughened up, hardened, deadened to this? Won't it be so much harder for him 'out there' later if I don't force him to put up with school now?





Is this how human nature must be formed? The hard-knock-life theory doesn't sit well with me. It grates and constrains and makes me feel angry. Love breeds love. That's all there is to it. Kindness breeds kindness. Shall we all learn to be mean, or turn a blind eye to meanness because then we can get by in life, not be hurt? Not let ourselves be hurt because we'll be so busy hurting others. I read this article about a man being beaten and attacked in London in daylight and people just walked by. They just walked by, it was on CCTV. People looked, but no one helped. Does anyone remember that sick feeling at school - you see someone being bullied but you sort of turn away inside, seal yourself off because if you pipe up then the fear is it'll turn on you. So we walk on by. We learn to walk on by. Early on we learn not to draw attention to ourselves. Survival at such an unhappy personal cost. Or what about that story about the person bleeding on the sidewalk and all those people standing around, shocked, anxious, worried. No one called an ambulance because everyone assumed someone else was. And that person dies right there overlooked by so many. Am I being ridiculous here? Is it just me seeing this sick way of looking at human nature and not finding much good about learning to conform and fit in? Because I don't. It's taken me nearly 30 years to know now that I don't want to perpetuate this way of being. The only way I can start a reversal is by living a different life. By living a different sort of life with my family, by us all choosing to do things differently. A friend once said when someone remarked that her daughter looked like the one wearing the trousers in her family that they were an autonomous collective. That little phrase stuck with me these long years. I must let my children make their choices - such as Isaac wanting to try out school, but I must also remember that we operate as a family, as a collective. His decision to school, was one that schooled us all. It changed all of our lives.



Now we are re shaping it again to something new, something that won't be as before, something we can carry on from and learn by as we live. No choice is forever, we can all be as supple as the willow branch in the wind (remembering too that trees need firm root structures if they are able to grow and move). Living this way we are allowed to be as supple as the willow branch in the wind. That's the point.

this week...

~ We all seem to be in varying stages of having Swine Flu. Nice.

~ No electricity from 7am until after 8pm on Thursday (plus my dh was away in Scotland). Had to rummage for candles and only had fire for warmth and comfort. Very exciting for everyone but kinda stressful too, it didn't have to be of course, but it sort of was.....

~ The masses of wood we had delivered is seasoned, but not dry. Yikes. We are such novices at this, obviously. My dh was so forced to cut down a very dead tree and it turns out to be wonderfully dry inside (Ash maybe?) and burns fabulously. Unfortunately it means my dh is outside in the dark each evening after work with an axe. Not a good combo..... so much so that he spilt the axe and in a rage/tiredness went and bought a chainsaw. This means he's a man out in the dark with a chainsaw instead. Scary.

~ Isaac has finished his school experiment and we are fully fledged home educators again :) I'll write more another time about this experience if I have his permission, but it was not especially a good one, poor boy. But he's back, nestled in his home with us all and glad about it (albeit with swine flu).

~ There were art and craft projects....



~ And the modelling of new hats;





~ We entered The Land of Purple Tutu's.... It's mind boggling what a one year old can force you to buy.



~ A huge stain, HUGE, mysteriously appeared on the cream floor in the sitting room, roughly the size of my dd and coloured BLACK. Unnoticed by me my dh went and bought some vile Vanish type of stain remover, used it and now I am (being hyper chemically sensitive) feeling very sick by the yucky scent. It is just gross and ill-inducing and I am rather in a silent rage about it.... *sigh*. Poor dh!

~ The dishwasher broke. Heavens alive, it's a new thing for me, having one, but OMG, how did I cope before??? I am rather overwhelmed by the state of the kitchen. What with being a neat-freak and all.

~ And so, I went and ordered a huge fat pile of delicious wool for myself. Justified? I'd say.

Sick of my leaf and tree pics? Well, I'm not so that's OK. If looking out of the window and the briefest of walks is all I get this week I'll breathe it in while it's all still there.

Walks With Astonishing Splashes of Colour

we don't quite

... have any gifts ready yet for end of year celebrations. But we do have tags! Many tags..... The boys were busy today on these. Great for little hands and 'sewing' skills. A hole punch, wool, some blunt ended tapestry needles and sparkly new metallic effect markers were all that were called for. Roll on card making, we're ready for more of the same. As for gifts? well, no idea. Might the tags be enough in themselves I wondered? Enough effort went into them..... Ridiculous! The boys thought I was ridiculous. I am, of course. Since I'd be happy with just a tag :)



I am thinking they'd even make nice tree decorations with some variations in card and shape.... ? Wonder if I can convince the boys? Felix certainly yes if he thought they could be made in the shape of knights, soldiers or Star Wars characters. We could be having a very unusual Christmas Tree this year.

oh me oh my, crackers

Oh well! I am feeling great, really vibrant and healthy and full of beans. Not literally, I don't much eat legumes... but anyway what I came to post about were my crackers! Seriously I made crackers, and it sounds so laborious and tricky and time consuming and fiddly, just saying it, like you need to be a gourmet chef. BUT NO! For anyone even a tiny bit lazy these are the crackers for you.

Raw onion and flax seed crackers

I have been lusting over and treating myself to these for a while now. But my wallet is shrinking, withering up and flying away on a puff of air at the astronomical cost of the tiny stamp-sized bites. My dh's eyes roll in his head (although sweet man his mouth stays closed) and I can see him greying around the temples at my extravagance. So it was time to make my own. I've been meaning to for ages (with an enormous sigh at the imagined labour involved) but this is what I did:

Chopped an onion and threw it in the magimix, poured in some flax seed (golden linseed) a handful of pumpkin seeds, a pinch of pink Himalayan salt and then whizzzzzzzzz. After minute it was a creamy pourable eye watering mush. I spread this as thin as I could without being able to see the greaseproof paper on a lined baking sheet. I put this in the bottom oven of my AGA with the door ajar. The bottom over is essentially a plate warmer so you can guess the temperature is low, with the door cracked open a bit these took maybe 12-16 hours to dry our to a lovely crunch crispy cracker. So I slept. Gourmet chef that I am. And that was it, they would have stayed in the lovely cracker shapes I cut them into after the first couple of hours but I didn't OIL the paper, NOTE TO SELF: do that next time. It will save many minutes peeling tiny scraps of paper from the backs of yummy crackers.



They are so yummy. Nicer than the ones I have been buying. Cheesy flavoured even, Isaac thought they had garlic in and asked what spices I used..... none! They are that yummy.

I am shiny eyes with the possibility again of crunchy food. After six months I miss a crunch. Yahhoooo. It's crunch time.

to breathe

I tried to hold my breath for as long as possible underwater when I was small; like most kids fascinated with their ability to swim and the magic of being underwater. I puffed on cigarettes and other more illegal smoking substances in my teens, I kissed until I had to come up for air. I discovered Yoga at 18 and for the first time was aware of my breathing as thing I could manipulate and control for increased metal calm. I held my breath in labour, I did lots of things in my three labours with my breathe, graceful and exquisitely relaxing, harsh and tormentingly brutal. And then I discovered again my breathe. In quite a new way: I listen now for the wheeze, each breath that happens without a thin veil or web covering it is a victory and relief, on the other side of the coin it's anxiety (is my trachea about to collapse?). Am I being ridiculous? For quite a while my dh thought my chest pain and anxiety about the restriction I feel in my chest was all just 'in my head'. Because, of course, the minute one thinks about breathing, well one is thinking about it; trying to control it, perhaps breathing more forcefully, more often, trying to ascertain whether the wheeze is on the inhalation or the exhalation, at the beginning of the end of the breath, is the restriction from the throat or the lungs?



Man.... can I just say I am so frickin tired of breathing :lol Obviously that's a really shit joke. Since I'll do anything to carry on breathing. It's exhausting, sometimes I am glad to sleep, just, you know, so I am not listening to myself breathe. I can no longer use deep calm breathing to calm myself since the very breathe is the essence of my anxiety. How absurd is that? The back of the throat breathing I learnt in Ashtanga Yoga has left me, bereft. Gone some where else. Because my lung capacity and shrunk some. Why? Well, I'm not sure right now. Waiting for referrals takes some time, and so I am in that some time limbo of waiting (and hoping). My CRP (c-reactive protein) is normal thought right now which is very good, it means no inflammation is happening..... which is fab but I am still left wondering about the lung/chest stuff which is a 3-4 month old tiring bore for my poor dh (I imagine) who gets the run down and my including rhetoric each day.



I am on the mend from a tummy bug (or something) which has left me weak and quivering and tired and with sore ribs. I am slurping coconut water (electrolyte balance) and raspberry leaf tea (astringent) and trying to eat some of the gentle roast vegetables cooked in coconut oil my dh has made me. Luckily (god I don't actually mean this) Felix is a bit ill and thus uber chilled out on the sofa with a cold and Isaac is doing his school/unschool experiment still, so it's only whirlwind-minx-fox-girl Esmé in full swing to be mindful of and for me to amuse minute by bursting full minute.



So there you go. I have pushed myself up from cushions near the hearth (when I get a space there - it's in demand that favourite-sacred spot) and wrapped myself gratefully in a beautifully extravagant and silky soft cashmere and merino wool coat/wrap my MIL gave me (can't say I've ever shopped in Jaeger, that requires money) and forced my trembly bird-legs outside.



It still transforms me. Every second. I get drunk with happiness. Life is so full of beauty and colour it takes my breathe away (good pun aye? - see I can still crack one). But it does and I am in my element. I look at beads of water droplets suspended in rows full and ripe along bare branches and nearly burst myself open at their very being. The grey of the tree trunks and the apple green moss....mist thrumming the air, so dank and rich with water you practically rehydrate with each lungful (I guess I am still thinking about that breathing...). The huge Horse Chestnut leaves, a handful left only, clinging like fairy lights; I laugh at their exquisiteness and daring fun to stay tight to their branches even now when their peers have long since swirled away on wind and water to be again transformed.



And so I cling with all my might. I want no other life, for this is the one which shall transport me to where ever I need to go. It does, it will. I choose and choose and subtly the breathe of life takes me along for it's swirling journey and sometimes I twist and change it's course. That's good too. For their is no right or wrong in such things, only life. I think I am becoming some sort of terribly boring Buddhist:) But I care not even a jot. Some days after coming inside I feel so calm and refreshed I could swear my breathing is gentle and soft and not hurting. I saw a sign in a window for Meditation Nights in my little town, I have been dreaming of attending one, thinking I need a space for my mind to still and calm and flower which way it will (and still my jagged breathing?). But it's 7-9 pm. Now all you mama's know the significance of those hours. I am guessing it must be a man thing, no women would surely pick such child-bed-mama hours. But I'll find a way I think.



Finding a way. We all do, somehow.

welcome home

Little Fire.



Esmé - is it here yet, can I look?



She plonked herself down and was instantly mesmerised. Just like the rest of us. Who needs TV when you can fire gaze....?





Especially when outside the leaves are scarcer, the rain steadily drips and Autumn reins.









Indoors the two little ones are busy, sellotape and tracing paper are Felix's new loves and Esmé is just happy to join in.



He also likes dressing up, and she obliges him there too, he told me he made her into a fairy-knight. So apt.

one of those days when

....you stand (as still as is possible in a houseful of children) for a minute to try and take stock of your life, but your train of thought is interrupted. By what? Well lets see. Could it be the three children hanging (metaphorically) from my knees, or the table littered with breakfast remains demanding my attention or or or.... Esmé, usually. Seems like some days (read: most) even my thoughts cannot form a coherent shape. Never mind the food waiting in the fridge to become a meal, or the jumbles of what-the-fucks all over the floor waiting to be picked up .... what a magnificent phrase btw! I'd cite it but can't possibly be expected to remember where I read it..... my thoughts too are hijacked and shredded in every which way. I think that makes for the 'mother brain' everyone talks about, the one that makes you feel mostly happy to be a stay at home mother (cos' hey, it's hard to remember any other way of life quite frankly). I feel bamboozled today. I just wanted to read the dreamy piece on Russel Brand (no IDEA why, maybe it helps me feel on top of current affairs? Laughable notion since it's probably the only piece of newsprint I have read - or tried to *sigh* - in about a year). In any case if didn't happen.



Because of several people telling me (read: whining) about the toppings they REALLY wanted on their french toast (chocolate spread studded with marshmallows) instead of the one I gave them (fruit sweetened jam and sliced pear).



Because someone pulls this chair around everywhere and screeches when anything gets in her way. She uses it, and us all to her advantage (with a slight tearing of nerves), all day. Despite her goddess like-ness.





Because after visitors and fun and fireworks I was told tearfully that Halloween was not spooky enough for him. So I feebly set forth to make *more fun*. To some effect. I think this person just wanted excuse to make more spooky things (read: apples, because they are spooky at Halloween apparently, but only when smothered sweetly) dipped in chocolate.











Because the place where the wood stove *will* go, is still empty - more slippery-ness from the builder and the house is cold.



BUT I stepped outside (and hustled everyone else) and my sense of... well, something (perhaps, self) was briefly restored and fortified. I forget how quickly I can feel this good just by being outside for a bit. I can walk so soft and dreamy it feels like being in bed, and well.... floating. It's better than the old old feelings I remember that drugs induced. This is purer and clearer and it doesn't matter that I can't pin down who I am or what I am or even the need to define or take stock of anything at all. None of that matters much. Oh if I could live in that feeling. It's the in-the-moment bliss (now: ITMB) that is so rare and precious... because of the rareness? Why is it rare - because my kids breech in on it? But without them I wouldn't have it, any of this - of that I am sure, because I wouldn't be here right now, the person I am, living this particular life with these muddled but Good feelings.















So the chaos will have to rein indoors, it can, as long as when I am outside the moments of ITMB can stretch and grow and be experienced. Incidentally I read some where that this is why people cite sex as being their favourite past time, I guess one is literally In The Moment...... But back to being outdoors, I am right there, and hugging my trees, sniffing the sharp-joy inducing air and generally rolling in ecstasy through the Autumn leaves (well metaphorically, really I just stand and smile, but I'm really rolling, if you know what I mean.....).