Just like you, we are still navigating our new normal. We are doing our best to relax and think through the issues we are facing. Morning meditation and reading have been calming and soothing, with a little Cosmic Kids yoga thrown in. My kiddos have immersed themselves in the arts for a long portion of the day. Their creations range from modeling clay pokemon figures to miniature family members to the fairy tea party pictured above. My daughter was especially pleased with her modeling clay tea cups, saucers, dishes and fruit, all set up with her other loose parts... absolutely delighted and lost in her imaginary tales... pure bliss♥
I know it doesn't look like it but we too are suddenly home schooling again but this time it's due to the pandemic. What I like to share with parents who haven't home schooled is... you don't want your home to be just like the institution you just left. Don't try to recreate school at home. Home is their safe place, their comfortable retreat from the world and where we can be love and be still. We also don't focus on the pandemic but do add in a daily update and the new "normals" we need to accommodate and participate in.
We have been reading 'Ominous Campfire Adventures' that we started just before 'World Storytelling Day'. Instead of saving it for our campfire adventures in summer, we decided to make up a makeshift campfire out of collected sticks, tissue paper, wool and sparkly pipe cleaner! We added mini marshmallows on skewers to fully immerse in the experience of the Northern Ontario Canada campfire tales. A special thanks to Grandma (my Mom), for the great series of short stories... a truly awesome Christmas gift! After this, we will return after a brief intermission, to our morning readings of the screen play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I read to the kids over our breakfast and tea in the mornings before school. My kids are ages are 6, 10, 14 and 16. They all enjoy this time we share in the mornings and the stories we read!
We still enjoy our time in nature especially since the wakening of spring. So much to explore and discover in spring. During this time, we have seen the closure of our favourite spaces to hike and explore, but as long as we all shelter in place and do our part to plank the curve, we will be exploring again in the near future. I'd like to share one of our meditation poetry moments and wish you the peace that comes with stillness...
"Today I'm flying low and I'm not saying a word. I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I'm taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I'm traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple."
~Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings
Today, we received the news with the rest of the province, that we will have another month of our home schooling endeavours but will also have to add in school led instruction time on computers. This too will be incorporated but it will be added to keep them on track in their studies. We will still embark on home school interests while we can... reading, art, meditation, yoga and exploring interests. This time has been scary, with horrible loss... make sure they have good memories too... Breathe, remind ourselves and them that we are all enough and doing enough. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ~WB Yeats... like the wonderful author Jean Pendziwol says, "don't worry about the pail, just keep the fires lit". She also wrote this poignant poem about hope for these uncertain times...
I found hope in a cherry tree that places tiny buds
on shivering leaf-bare branches in autumn
knowing that shadows can disappear
and stories can howl like wolves
and snowflakes can be icy and sharp
and there is no way for the tree to be sure
that the buds will ever bloom
and stories can howl like wolves
and snowflakes can be icy and sharp
and there is no way for the tree to be sure
that the buds will ever bloom
But the cherry tree knows it is hope in autumn
that brings flowers in spring
~Jean Pendziwol
