circle squared

Thinkin' 'bout stuff

2011-11-20T00:30:00.004-06:00

A boisterous late-night HELLO to my dear real and imagined readers! What a treat it is to read blogs and participate in them. Facebook is fun 'n all (I really am in an apostrophic mood), but I like the reined-in intimacy that this mode of communication provides.

I am so inspired by the people around me and on the Web who seek to live awake, on purpose, and with joy.

The particular flavor of joy I've been feeling of late is the type that belongs more in the subdued joy category than the crazy, colorful joy category.

I joyfully accept that. I like neutral colors, too. And we're in that neutral, Thanksgiving-y joy season. Reflective joy.

Here are some of my neutral, subdued, reflective joys: my family, the four of us and our extended family; birthday parties in churches; my-sister's-just-become-an-art-therapist parties (love those!); a gazania plant that continues to open and close in the sun; yellow maple leaves on the windshield of the car across the street and the neighbor boy wearing Anna's hat; Anthony Bourdain; John Taylor Gatto; the Renaissance Soul idea; the fact that I am bearing witness to the people my kids are becoming; sermons delivered by a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and an almost-nine-year-old in an empty church sanctuary this morning; the powerful knowledge that I can ask.for.help.; vegan cookbooks and all manner of cookbooks; a row of knitting here and there; preparations for an Advent spiral; a working dishwasher; love, love, love; health; delicious food; fondue, sausage, chicken burritos, green smoothies, roasted nuts, mangoes, sweet potatoes, chocolate chip cookies...help me!

Amen. And goodnight!

daughters, cows and goddesses

2011-08-16T01:03:00.001-05:00

Assumption of Mary yesterday. Sunday night I had the privilege of reading this gorgeous poem while a friend danced at a vesper service in Mary's honor. What an all-round gorgeous opportunity.

I've celebrated August 15 in an inward sort of way for quite a few years now. But I don't know why. I learned about the day from one of my all-time favorite books, Gertrud Mueller Nelson's To Dance with God.

I don't understand and just-plain-can't articulate my relationship with Mary, but I enjoy it. And I suspect it points me to an even broader goddess/Sophia love. I need to read this book next.

Yesterday I spoke with my dad on the phone. He told me about a 24/7 dairy farm he visited in Vermont. Robots milk the cows. I find that depressing and disrespectful to the process of lactation. I have been moving away from cow's milk over the last five months, and see myself continuing in that direction. Never say never, and everything in moderation and all. No need for extremism on this end. Yet it's that subjugation thing at work, even (or especially) at the dairy. The suppression of female energy, the distortion of male energy, the absence of balance.

None of it is new, and it's not getting me down, really. But I am captivated by the exploration, by the old women I meet in my dreams, by the intersections of past and future that are as near as a baby girl's soft skin next to a mother's withered hand.

Knowing I'm never alone on this exciting leg of the journey of life is a great consolation. I'm wondering and noticing things women have wondered and noticed forever. And change still happens, even as the questions persist.

on mystery, revolution and the goddess who mothers

2011-07-03T17:33:00.002-05:00

Today I had the privilege of hearing Bess Klassen Landis share about her experience being the daughter of a woman who was brutally murdered before the age of 42. Bess was thirteen at the time.

Stories like that aren't soon forgotten, especially when they are told by individuals who speak from a deep place of peace and surrender, as Bess did. As I reflect on Bess's story, the songs with which she accompanied it, and the blessing that led into the silence that followed her sharing, my heart is summoned yet again to heed its job and calling: to be true to the life I've been given, to let my life speak, to take the business of my humanity seriously and lightly at the same time.

I also had the privilege of sitting face-to-face with my mother this morning after Bess's sermon. We don't go to church together, so I seldom see her on Sundays. These days, I'm more mindful than ever of the ways I resemble her: the gifts I bear that are like hers, the gifts I bear that are different from her own, and the genes within me that came from her. My way of being in the world is both like hers and different from hers.

Ach! I'm not remembering the truth of what I wanted to say as accurately now, after the fact, as I was when I was thinking these thoughts of profundity three or more hours ago. Suffice it to say, as a forty-year-old woman, I take the call to live my life more seriously than I did ten and twenty and twenty-five years ago. Time is fleeting. It's true. Now is the time to live intentionally and do the things I want to do.

And playing magnets with a certain adorable girl (after changing her diaper) is first on the to-do list.

Oh! And the goddess and revolution thoughts: I was conscious of a mothering presence--the goddess--sitting near me today as I reflected on Bess's words and my own experience of them. She is ever-near, and I struggle to find the words to describe her salty, grassy, dry and wet greatness. So that's the mystery, too. And the revolution? Well, it's just trying to claim the days as sacred, recognizing that they certainly, certainly are.

vows to self and life

2011-04-04T00:45:00.000-05:00

This 30 Day Vegan experience has been a good one for me. How I have marveled at the plant realm's ability to nourish me, many days exclusively. I have not kept a vegan diet 100% of the time, and I have not felt compelled to.

What I have done is discover that, at 40 and at this stage in my life, I am much opener to dietary changes than I was ten or fifteen years ago. I am now more curious: how does dairy affect my health? What does my body feel like while eating wheat? Meat?

Sugar...that's a different topic, maybe one I'll explore later on this year. Who knows?

For now, I joyfully keep a vow to remain plant-centered in my eating. I crave beef and fish, and enjoy eating those meats. I listen to my body and what it asks for. What an amazing experience!

What I've been surprised by is that avocados, raw cashews, maple syrup, kale, sweet potatoes, coconut milk and oil, dark or semi-sweet chocolate, bananas, artichokes, blueberries, almonds, and many other things are more than luxurious enough to get me through the day.

I give thanks for the grass-fed hamburger I've been privileged to enjoy, the free-range eggs that are on their way to me, and the plants that are the center of my sustenance.

In the midst of all the toddler-care, homeschooling and family responsibilities, I took the opportunity to make and share a delicious vegan soup on Saturday. As Heather shared with the other retreatants on Saturday, soup-making and, of course, all cooking, can be a spiritual discipline.

Not only that, our very lives depend on our cooking and food preparation. I sense this in a deeper way now than I used to. The necessity of chopping so many fruits and vegetables has attuned me to that.

I was asked Saturday evening if I was sad to return from the conference I attended last week. "Was it hard to come home [to reality]?"

I guess the vow I am and have been making is one (many) to use ritual, daily habits, how I eat, to try and keep life "all of a piece."

I have to chuckle, though, as I read that last sentence, because I'm a newbie, a baby, an ever-needing-to-begin-again beginner with regard to habits.

Yet I am conscious. I am conscious that I want both the ecstasy and the laundry, to borrow the title of the Jack Kornfield book I have been wanting to read.

Livin' with polarities. That's life. That's me. Here I am.

Thanks be to God. Blessed be.

30 Day Vegan, Week 2

2011-03-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

I have eaten several animal foods this week: some salmon with real egg mayonnaise for breakfast on Thursday, a taste of sausage and sauerkraut on Tuesday evening, and a host of things today, including coffee cake and poached eggs.

I have decided to continue eating mostly vegan through the Lenten season. I feel this is a life-affirming decision because I want to have more time to let my body discover what this way of eating is like; because I have interrupted the pattern in a major way today, I look forward to more weeks of sustained plant-based food.

But I will continue eating whatever on Sundays. That's just how it goes. Also, I'm traveling this week. I have no idea what that's going to look like, but I plan to go with the flow and enjoy my food, whatever it is.

I am noticing:

mood and emotions: I have felt a little sad to be "off" my plan today. I could have gone vegan at lunch. The menu was groundnut stew with a lot of accompaniments. The stew, though, looked so good, and the beef was grown by the farmers who served it to me at their table....I did start the day with a delicious green smoothie, using Heather's recipe, including kale.

On Saturday I attended a gathering where ice cream cake was served. It was no problem for me to decline a piece. That amazes me. I felt great saying no. I was enjoying myself and had zero emotional need to eat the cake, as well as zero physical desire. Coming from me, that's pretty curious.

chewing and digestion: haven't had as many raw vegetables this week as the previous week, and I miss that. I am noticing that I'm enjoying straight-up plain vegetables (sans dressing or tahini or whatever) more than I thought I would, on the occasions when I eat things plain. Strange as it seems to me, I need to eat more fiber this week ;).

cravings: I seem to crave what Heather suggests. Last week she mentioned salmon, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. I baked some for Joel and decided I had to eat just a little. It was sooooooo good.

This way of eating does not exclude chocolate. That is the only thing I crave regularly. I have been eating chocolate chips every day and basically feeling good about that. Perhaps I will try going without sometime this week.

biggest challenge: This one is no surprise. It's getting my food ready while also cooking for the family. We are all eating some of the same things: quinoa this week, some of the vegetables and fruits, but I'm also making food just for them--not complicated stuff, but things that still take time to make.

greatest accomplishment: I would say that one was going to a brunch and turning down the ice cream cake. That is just so unlike me. And I felt so good doing it. Very curious indeed. I am enjoying my current weight, too. Without so much as trying I suppose I've lost a couple pounds. That's a pleasure, because my favorite vintage skirt fits just right, and it's been too tight around the waist since I bought it a year ago.

next week I plan to: get through the week. My toddler and I are going on a trip to Indiana to attend an exciting conference. I'm planning on letting go and enjoying the ride.

the vegan scene

2011-03-17T01:09:00.000-05:00

I, dairy farmer's daughter and hog farmer's niece, still can't believe I am even experimenting with veganism.

That said, I will share that I am noticing...

a great deal of energy coming from the food I eat
that I have many, many options for what to eat
joy in cooking that I haven't felt before, even though I enjoy cooking
a sense of amazement that I can feel well-nourished eating only plant foods.

I have enjoyed green smoothies, roasted vegetables with tahini sauce, almond milk smoothies, mushroom bierrocks, hummus, and so much more.

I'll be pondering this experience for a while to come.

figuring out some things

2011-03-02T00:29:00.001-06:00

It's been great to blog again. I've gotten to know some fabulous new (to me) bloggers and gained necessary inspiration for my daily life.

And now it's time for me to take a bit of a break. I've got many irons in the fire right now: taxes, upkeep on our home business records, a new dishwasher on the way (truly, glory hallelujah; I thought I could get into washing by hand, but I haven't been able to swing it), a potential new 1/4 time job for me at our church, the usual round of homeschooling things, preparations for a spring equinox celebration, a conference on Mary in Anabaptist Dress, which will provide me with the opportunity to read a lovely Gerard Manley Hopkins poem (bliss) and...an exciting 30-day at-home retreat for me (with Heather from Beauty that Moves).

Blessings!

brother and sister

2011-02-22T08:59:00.000-06:00

She is almost two and, spiritually and psychologically, it has taken me this long to believe and understand that they really are sister and brother. They're both "mine," and they belong to each other. And they really like being together. Both sick this morning, they're sleeping side-by-side.

the squared circle that got me to a new place

2011-02-21T00:06:00.002-06:00

from Coloring Mandalas by Susanne F. Fincher

"During stage 7, Squaring the Circle, the resolution of inner conflicts creates a stronger, more complex personality. You may find yourself motivated by a sense of mission that engages your whole self in the accomplishment of worthy goals. This mandala, like a crusader's shield, boldly announces, 'I am here.'"

That was me at age 36. I remember settling myself down on a soccer field sideline, getting cozy in the warm, electric green grass. I guess it was autumn, 2005, so I was just 35, about to turn 36. I took out colored pencils, opened the book, and this image arrested my eyes. I did not stop, as I recall. I read the description, thought, "Oh yeah. That's me," and set to work. The four squares helped unify my soul. The fragments of my spiritual self needed a common purpose to work for--me!

I discovered that I was not just chaplain, not just get-the-job-done-er. I was struggling to integrate motherhood into my being and feeling like I did not have time to be a mother--that it was a part of myself that had to get shoved all the way to the margins to make room for the part that had to earn the money to keep the family afloat.

I still have much to learn from that experience. Who we are is always changing, of course, thanks to new insights gained along the way.

Describing myself to myself as mother, wife, chaplain, woman, though, was a helpful exercise. Though weak boundaries were causing me to see myself primarily as someone available to others but not herself, I experienced an amazing awakening through the simple act of coloring an image.

Isn't that something? Thank you my sister Libby. Thank you Joan Kellogg, C.G. Jung, Susanne F. Fincher, art therapists everywhere.

I am still thankful for that day, for that piece of paper, for images that bring fragments into wholeness.

baby shoes

2011-02-20T23:51:00.000-06:00

Let me be clear that I adore baby shoes, especially leather baby shoes. Especially soft-soled leather baby shoes. Oh, I just like them so much. And I love the little feet that fill them.

luxurious breakfast

2011-02-17T10:22:00.002-06:00

This morning we were out of milk and yogurt, my breakfast staples. Instead of enjoying the charms of those particular dairy products, I made myself one of my favorite sweet sandwiches, remembering that we had cream cheese in the fridge. Here it is:
whole-grain bread slices, or some hearty bread that won't fall apart easily
a liberal layer of cream cheese or neufchatel on one of the slices
a liberal layer of nutella or a high-quality impersonator on the other slice
a nice sprinkling on both slices of cashew halves and diced, dried apricots

Unite the sandwich slices, cut sandwich in half if you desire, and garnish with fruit or whatever else strikes your fancy. Enjoy!

on dolls

2011-02-11T01:01:00.004-06:00

I loved dolls as a girl, and I'm surprised now at the emotional response I have to them. A month or two ago I bought one of the dolls in the hearth at the local thrift shop, just because her vintage plastic molded face and hair spoke sweetness and love to me.

As a five-year-old, my main doll squeeze was named, "I Love You." She was a rubber doll with formerly golden hair. When I Love You's original gold tresses became unsightly, my grandma Mildred made her a (lovely) brown wig to match my own hair. My mother wrote our address on I Love You's belly in indelible ink. I lost her at the Kansas City Airport, but they mailed her back to me. One time a playmate turned I Love You head down and swished her in a mud puddle. I was beside myself. I remember crying and crying one morning on the school bus because I just wanted to go back home to get I Love You; I felt a sudden need to take her to school (I didn't get to go).

I suppose that last memory is one reason I treasure homeschooling. When you learn at home (at least ideally), you don't have to let go of I Love You until you choose to. Your schedule allows you to go and retrieve that love, because it's worth holding on to and you're worth slowing down the world for. This, I can tell, is a whole other post in the making, but not the reason I'm writing about dolls, so I'll come back to the thought another time.

Today Henry and I listened to an episode of the Diane Rehm show that focused on the danger of encouraging little girls to engage in princess play. More specifically, Peggy Orenstein made the point that certain kinds of "princess play" can make it difficult for girls to disentangle their sexuality from our culture's tendency to sexualize them.

Objectification. Consumerism. Addiction. Selfishness. These are some of what I believe to be the real problems behind playing princess. Joel has been reading Andrew Lang and George MacDonald stories to Henry at bedtime off-and-on for a couple years now, and they're ripe with princesses and heroines in the traditional princess sense. But, in my opinion, these female characters are archetypes, just as the warrior, the king, the prince, the beggar, and others are archetypes.

So, so, so often we want to throw the baby out with the bath water instead of just getting rid of the dirty water. I think the society that sexualizes little girls instead of treasuring them, that rewards them for buying off-the-rack princess costumes and attending consumer events in them rather than wearing them for outdoor tea parties that just might lead to hole digging or tree climbing, is one that suffers from multiple addictions and chronic, collective low self-worth. I could go on and on here, but to what end?

Suffice it to say, aside from my homeschooling peeps and close acquaintances and friends, I don't see a whole of mothers and fathers out there encouraging doll play. Baby doll play. I think I don't see as much of that because parents feel ambivalent about teaching girls and boys to pretend with dolls, to mother and father dolls. Better to play at being professionals: fire fighters, iron chefs, police officers, spies, princesses.

From the surface, there seem to be more "jobs" out there for preening, narcissistic types than solid mamas and papas. Oh, pardon my cynicism. I'm really a rather hopeful person.

BUT...don't we glorify the sparkle-clad movie stars and their ilk an awful lot?

My solution is to nurture my little girl by doing a whole lot of things and celebrating her whole being. But I want dolls to be companions and teachers for her if she wants them to be. And, so far, she does.

Ahh. More to say, but it is time for bed.

I really would love to have some dolls with skin of brown, yellow and olive hues. Quite a lot of pink plastic there, wouldn't you agree?

a little audio

2011-02-09T10:10:00.003-06:00

It's about passion, and some other things

2011-02-03T14:05:00.006-06:00

Just a while ago we returned from a Kansas Day celebration with others in our home school co-op. Kansas isn't my home state, but I'm learning more about it than I ever knew about Missouri, because Kansans are proud people. I like that about them. They know their state insect and state tree, and they really, truly celebrate their identity. Real Kansas Day is January 29, but we've had snow and severely cold weather these last few weeks, along with a couple almost-70-degree days, so we met today instead of two weeks ago.

The thing I loved most about this morning was meeting a local member of an organization called "The Brotherhood of Mountain Men," or something like that. He said there are only 400 members of this nationwide organization. Just back from a camping get-together in Oklahoma, where he awoke to snow and three degrees above zero (F) air, this guy smelled like another place in time. He brought his beaver musk for us to smell (can't remember what it was called, but, in sight and scent it was like delicately fermented ground-up organ meat). He brought buffalo-bladder-and-buckskin storage bags, knives, rifles, pistols, buffalo hides, buffalo hair socks, deerskin and wool cold-weather slippers, a porcupine-quill-embellished pipe holder, parfleches, and a host of other things, all so very appealing to the kinesthetic learner in me--especially the smell parts. It's really something to be in a room with someone who, along with his things, has an odor. Yes, an odor. Not a bad odor, but an outdoors odor.

This kind of thing just excites me no end. Whether the discipline be computer circuit-bending or historical re-enacting or knitting (and the accompanying carding and spinning) or something in the fields of science or math or literature...I don't care. Show me your passion (and your reverence for life), and I will love what you do and who you are, even if I didn't first think I would like you or agree with you.

I really feel grateful for this type of learning, because it's not just for Henry the homeschooler, it's for me too. Learning is a lifetime process and I love to learn. I love to learn!

Candlemas

2011-02-02T09:57:00.003-06:00

Today is Candlemas, and it's fair and bright here, so I guess winter will have another flight. About this time of year three years ago, I began this blog.

I like what Waverly Fitzgerald has to say about the day here and here.

I do so desire to live out the seasons of the year. For one, it seems to me that we were just born to do it, so why not?

On Candlemas, Waverly pledges to undertake some activity that will nurture her spiritual and/or creative self. She sees it as the true beginning of the new year. I like that, too. January, then, is kind of a warm-up for the new year that is to come. We get forty days after solstice and Christmas to let the Incarnation and the returning of the light settle in, take down the decorations, show the baby at the temple, so to speak (The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord), and then begin a new year.

This year I am working on flexibility. I notice in myself less physical flexibility than I used to have. To the end of increasing my flexibility, I intend to practice (almost daily) just one yoga position, one I learned in a Kripalu class years ago: the seated spinal twist, also known as the posture of perpetual youth :).

I also want to keep spiritually flexible, but that is a topic for another time.

A blessed Candlemas or Imbolc to all!

soul food

2011-01-27T23:34:00.004-06:00

I'm enjoying equipping our play kitchen now that Anna's using it more. Today I found a little shelf for holding kitchen items. I'm not sure it will stay where it is, but she likes it doing its shelf thing there on top of the range.

Here's something else that's giving me pleasure: good and varied reading material in the co-sleeper. I don't hesitate to read withdrawn PEOPLE magazines from the library. But I might reconsider once Henry gets curious about my reading material. I think Adam Carolla's book In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks is pretty hilarious, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. The Boston Review is engaging and fascinating. I don't identify with Nancy Hirschmann, but I sure do love Shannon Hayes' response. Superbaby? Well, I decided to just check it out and take a look. It's interesting. She has some helpful, reasonable things to say to me, a mother who leans heavily to the no-scheduling end of the spectrum, about the value of routine in daily life.
This quotation from Adam Carolla, though, really gets me laughing:

"Giving birth is tough, but let's not treat it like it's anything more than it is. I can't stand the mommy bloggers, the women who have kids and then decide to go online and write about the dos and don'ts. You know, hard-hitting topics like 'Sack Lunch. Friend or Foe?' It's all the same forty-year-old white chicks. ...[A]ll of a sudden after you have a kid you must write a children's book and a blog to explain to other people how to do it. You're telling us stuff we've all known for a billion years."

on the mantel

2011-01-27T16:56:00.002-06:00

A certain Goldilocks-resembling almost-two-year-old has discovered a favorite hangout. Our mantel has held many things over the ten years we've been here, but she and Henry are my favorite decorations yet. Today she lay down on it like a bed.

Thankful Thursday

2011-01-20T22:55:00.003-06:00

Inspired by Paige's Thankful Thursday practice, I'm posting these thoughts at the eleventh hour (well, 23rd) of Thursday. Today I am thankful for:

Delicious coffee, made by Joel every morning, presented with just the right amount of cream. Heck! Most of the time it's mostly decaf, but it's still delicious. And, when I get the real thing, it's really good.

The coffee maker himself

Koala bears: they're soooo cute. I remember that from my childhood, but I've fallen in love with them again since reading a new book on 100 animals (to Anna).

Marley and Me, the audio book. I haven't heard Henry laugh so loud in a while.

Heidi, a beautiful story that delights my senses and gets me thinking about the Swiss heritage we have going on here on both sides of the family.

My red clogs (and the sister who gave them to me!)

Snow

Full moonlight

Conditions that Maximize Healing

2011-01-20T15:10:00.005-06:00

I find Spirituality and Health magazine to be chock full of good stuff, and I recommend it to everyone I think might be interested. Here's their website http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/spirit/.

Janene Heldman, MA, MFT has a great article on addiction and healing in the current issue. Here, she says that, to maximize our innate healing powers we must
1. Feel hopeful that healing is possible;
2. Believe that the power exists internally and externally to activate and promote healing, and that we can access this power;
3. Believe that we deserve to be healed;
4. Be receptive to and ask for treatment;
5. Be willing to let go of the illness or disorder;
6 Be willing to accept health and all of its known and unknown responsibilities.

This kind of thing really gets me thinking.

moving on

2011-01-20T01:24:00.001-06:00

new energy for this blog

2011-01-20T01:11:00.004-06:00

And now let me tell you something else. I am happy! Yes, I truly and surely am. I could say so many things about why, but what I wish to talk about in this one-more-post for the day is that I am finding energy to want to return to this blog--not that there is any mandate other than my own for doing so, but that it brings me joy to do so. I am ready to reconnect with the identity that began unfolding here a couple years ago and use the blog to reconnect with bloggers I enjoy knowing online.

My body, mind and soul can't afford to let this pastime fill too much of my life, but keeping my blog has been a life-giving outlet. Hooray for me!

To celebrate this inner shift, I bought myself tulips this evening. My favorite kind--red with yellow tinges. Our home is messy, and I have a deep longing to get it into a cleaner state by Candlemas/Imbolc. That said, I am enjoying a reconfiguration of some of its spaces. Here are two of them that I'm enjoying right now.

in memoriam

2011-01-20T00:53:00.002-06:00

I used to be a chaplain. I am currently staying home full-time with our two children. It is good. It is what I have longed for. It is hard. It has taken me almost a whole year to really say good-bye to what was. The change was a welcome one. I could not figure out how to be in that position anymore. It was a lovely 9.5 years. A lovely place.

It was also becoming impossible for me to be myself there. I felt bitterness. I didn't feel enough creative energy to get along with people whom I didn't feel understood by. I need to process that here at Circle Squared, because I'm still hanging on. I still think about my former career when I awake and go to sleep. I think about what I want to say to my supervisor, who is not my supervisor anymore. I am having real difficulty letting go of that relationship. Or, rather, not the relationship itself, but what it symbolized for me.

In that relationship I felt deeply misunderstood. The person I had been at my workplace no longer fit in, because she evolved as I moved from full-time to part-time work, beginning in 2007. She was evolving before that. Don't we all?

My workplace changed, too. The culture changed in a way I can't put into words. I felt I had lost my voice.

That is okay. I speak on. I am okay. They're okay, too. And that's good to hear.

I was done a divine and human favor by being told "it's apply for full-time work here or leave."

I was let go. I chose to let go. The day I learned the change would be happening, this poem by Rilke came into my home email as part of the Gratefulness.org November 2009 newsletter. I owe that site a lot, because they've shaped me as a person over the last decade. Here is the poem.

Sonnets to Orpheus
Part Two, XII

Want change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything is alight as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body turning away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I don't think I quite dare to become the wind yet, but I am pouring myself out like a fountain, flowing into the knowledge that what I am seeking finishes at the start and begins at the ending.

2010-12-22T09:42:00.002-06:00

Anna has sky powers

2010-07-25T07:55:00.002-05:00

Henry, Anna and the cousins are spending lots of time together this summer. Maybe it's reading Percy Jackson to Henry and the three of them playing a bit of that; maybe it's just the magic of childhood. How ever it came about, Anna, age one, has been given sky powers. According to her eldest cousin, here is how she is to turn daytime into night.

"Use your powers wisely, or else you could lose your powers. Use this power only at sunset.
Raise both Anna's hands while facing a window in which sunset can be seen.
From the light turn daytime into night!"

How to turn night into day

"Use this rhyme only at sunrise, while looking through a window where you can see the sunrise. Hold up Anna's hands and say the rhyme.
Make the light from the dark. Make the sky light just a spark!"

There's a piece of the day-to-night spell I couldn't read. I'll have to ask the spell-crafter to decode it for me.

reading week

2010-05-12T21:24:00.003-05:00

Knowing that our every-day-some-schoolwork school year will soon be over, we principals of the Microlith School (the name Joel gave our school when we registered with the state of Kansas at the beginning of the year now that Henry is seven) have wanted to focus on reading a little more intentionally than we had in the recent past. We have called this week reading week and it has met with great success so far. Here is the first of five short stories Joel is writing for reading week. I guess we'll be putting these together to form what may become The Microlith Reader.

new life

2010-05-01T23:26:00.013-05:00

This evening, while eating pigs-in-a-blanket (and some of the other creations I made with that quickie pizza dough I stirred up) with my family, I experienced a sudden feeling of happiness with my "new" life as an unemployed mother. The dishes have been staying washed for weeks, I'm chipping away at chores that have needed doing, I'm enjoying days at the park with homeschool friends and yard time and meals with dear neighbors. Though Henry would disagree some of the time, I think I'm generally a nice person to be with right now.

And then there was this little note from Thich Nhat Hanh (via Oprah's magazine) to me tucked away in his book (which I'm giving away) Living Buddha, Living Christ.

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."

Oh yeah, my Buddhist mentor. Oh yeah.

There's a lot about my dearly-departed job that I'm missing: hanging around exceptional elders, the art of "getting things done," the many opportunities I had for singing-with, laughing-with, listening-to others, my weekly meditation given at Wednesday afternoon worship.

There's also a piece I'm not missing: working with others to figure out how to make ourselves look great while (IMHO) diverting some of our best energy away from the task of intentional, sustainable, compassionate living.

I worked for a lovely institution and I wish it and its dears well. Oh yes I do.

As I sort through my library (which I've been carrying like a giant bag of sorrows in both trunks of our cars for about a month and a half), these are some of the titles I'm keeping:

The Spiritual Life and Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill
(That woman lived a great life).
Prayer, Fear, and Our Powers by Flora Slosson Wuellner
A Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser

...and lots of others. I am glad to release some of them, though, because I'm weighed down by too many books. Let go, let go, let go.

Here are some of the things I'm cherishing.

Manifest the Love of God in the Universe

2010-03-15T17:38:00.003-05:00

That's what it's all about. Even though we here in this fine house are in major transition regarding jobs, money, livelihood, I'm holding fast to the confidence that things are coming together as we accept what is, summon and then allow the right actions to flow through us. Live and accept what is in the now without anger and then clearly see what is the next point.

How fantastic it is to wash the dishes while Anna sleeps and Henry plays with Noah on a sunny springtime day. There is a flow and we are a part of it. God's great intelligence. Any of these podcasts are wonderful. I'm enjoying part II of Tom Fox's interview with David Steindl-Rast, founder of Gratefulness.org.

I am grateful.

Peace. Peace. Peace. So be it.

Anna Kate is one!

2010-03-09T00:04:00.011-06:00

Someone we love turned one on February 28.
To help celebrate, Aunt Libby made a keepsake birthday crown.

Grandma Baumgartner made chocolate cake with seven-minute frosting.

Grandma Ewy composed a special birthday song
(but I'm not showing you Grandma Ewy because she's making a funny face and would be cross with me if I showed it even though it's sweet).

Big brother Henry helped blow out the candle.

Anna ate the cake with unprecedented daintiness.
And Daddy stood behind the camera to take pictures.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNA KATE!
You are one year old!

At one year, Anna is standing by herself; refraining from eating pennies and dimes that she shakes out of Henry's bank and puts back in the correct slot; saying all sorts of words like, "ball," "uh-oh," "dog," "Boy Blue" (says Grandpa Baumgartner), clock, and other new words every day. She is sociable, persistent and adoring. She has begun calling Henry "Heh," and celebrates her new accomplishments with smiles of satisfaction. She seemed bewildered as she opened all those presents. What was all that paper stuff on the floor in front of her? The next day, though, she woke up acting older, as if she knew something special and transformative had happened.

This year has flown by. We are so very glad she is here with us.

Lots to post, birthday, etc., but time for a breather

2010-03-04T22:20:00.003-06:00

Caring is the greatest thing, caring matters most.
--Friedrich von Hugel, last words, 1925

from The Quiet Eye: A Way of Looking at Pictures

February 14

2010-02-14T17:19:00.001-06:00

homemade geoboard

2010-02-08T00:26:00.003-06:00

After reading about this in the lab sheet annotations for Henry's Miquon workbook, I decided I could whip up a geoboard myself. And so I did. Made it in the wrong dimensions, but it's still fun.

eleven months

2010-02-08T00:12:00.006-06:00

At eleven months (on 1/28), Anna Kate is competent with her fingers, opinionated in her likes and dislikes, fond of calling everything and everyone "di," a great admirer of her brother, sweet as ever, almost one year old!

purification

2010-02-07T22:47:00.003-06:00

I celebrated Candlemas with women friends last Sunday. One of the words we contemplated was purification, a concept I haven't historically been overly fond of. The whole pure/impure dichotomy has tended to leave me feeling flat. Who is pure? Who is impure? Aren't we always a little of both?

Jesus talked a lot about that sort of thing. Wheat and chaff. His mother and father went to the temple 40 days after he was born, when Mary was once again, "pure," so they could receive a blessing for their son.

Candlemas is an observance of the purification of Mary, among other things. How are we like her? How am I like her? She has been important to me for a long time now, even though I can't articulate exactly why. Doesn't matter. It's deep, limbic stuff that I'm happy to feel and not explain.

So, when I sang this verse from Fred Pratt Green's "Whom shall I send?" in church this morning, I took it as a divine sign that everything's gonna be all right...one way or another.

Those who are called God purifies,
and daily gives us strength to bend
our thoughts, our skills, our energies
and life itself to this one end.

I'm losing my job, my lovely 1/4 time job, in three weeks. In painfully diplomatic language, I was told I could apply for the position full-time or say good-bye. My dear co-worker and I are electing to say good-bye. Neither one of us could take it on full time. Nor could the third dear chaplain who joined us after my Anna was born.

I pray for God to give me daily strength to bend my thoughts, my skills, my energies, my life itself, to the end of work/life balance.

Full-time chaplaincy while mothering small children has not provided that kind of balance for our family.

Here's my trusting surrender to what is to come. Light a candle. Say a prayer for our family. We have options and ideas, but the future is unlit. Thank you!

recent developments

2010-02-01T23:43:00.004-06:00

Sometimes you want what you can't have.When you're eleven months old, though,
Mommy can usually make it better...eventually.

Christmas, good bye

2010-01-19T22:01:00.003-06:00

I loved that tree. I love keeping Advent and Christmas. I love it that it is (reportedly) Henry's favorite time of year. I love it that there's a squared circle on the book on the piano in this photo. Did you notice it? I loved decorating our tree. I loved venturing out in the cold to get it. I loved it that Joel spotted it right off. I loved watching him saw it down and carry it away. I loved singing the little I could remember of "O Tannenbaum" while he sawed it. I loved watching Henry and Noah hike around the hill while we searched. I loved celebrating winter solstice by laying a spiral with cedar boughs that same evening.

If only I loved the rest of winter as much as I love Christmas. Now is the hard part. The days are getting longer, but I'm tired of layering up to go outside. Putting Anna in all her gear; making sure Henry has clothing that he hasn't thought to bring, but might want later.

But, now is the time we have. Now is the time I have. I can be thankful for it.

ten months

2010-01-05T11:15:00.004-06:00

Someone else turned ten months old the next day, December 28, on Aunt Libby's birthday. What an adorable age.

Happy Birthday, Henry!

2010-01-05T11:06:00.003-06:00

Our bouncing, not-so-baby boy turned seven December 27. Here he is trying out Anna's restraining :) device. At seven, Henry is...

exuberant as ever
loving his Legos, especially the Lego Star Wars items
writing out his thoughts more and more (He wrote "Grrr, I'm mad" in the car window condensation Sunday on the way home from Wichita.)
loving his sister

wowing me with the breadth and depth of things he wants to talk about
caring for friends with phone calls, reflective listening, patient problem-solving
our dear boy!

a post before folding laundry

2009-12-17T20:44:00.004-06:00

I keep forgetting I'm living the life of my dreams because there are so many things that don't feel dreamy: I'm losing my job (sometime in the future), there is a mountain of laundry to fold (and yesterday the phone disappeared in the mix), and Anna's diapers are getting threadbare (again),

BUT

she is asleep for the time being. Henry is out with Joel for the evening, which means I've had some lovely re-grouping time alone. I ate canned salmon with Annie's white cheddar shells, avocado, cucumber & cilantro. Then I made myself some hot cocoa with half and half which, I've discovered, is divine, and I defrosted some raspberries to eat alongside.

AND

I'm not losing a full-time job, but a fulfilling 12-hour-a-week job, and life's not over yet. I'm committed to enjoying the laundry, enjoying the (at least for now) opportunity to spend a lot of time at home with our dear children, and to connect with the local homeschooling community and continue enjoying the process of learning with Henry and Anna (and Joel) at home.

I AM THANKFUL FOR

Good King Wenceslas duets with Henry; good food; the sound of things humming along, like the diapers washing right now in the washing machine and the clack of my keyboard; the sight of a sleeping baby; my little family and my extended family; the generosity of my church.

I PRAY FOR

a wise heart; the self-discipline to persevere in a life-giving path and do the right thing/s at the right time/s; the ability to be truthful but not snarky when I feel I've been wronged; self-understanding; the wisdom to know the difference between justified indignation and self-righteous pomposity (in myself) in the workplace.

That picture up there is an example of what I love and enjoy: time at home in happy, colorful chaos that allows me and those around me to keep becoming who I believe we need to be--not just for our own good, but for the greater good as well.

nine months

2009-12-13T00:17:00.004-06:00

We both slept with Henry last night, because he needed us.
She likes the furry friends in this book. She likes all furry friends, including Shanti and Ernie. She likes their kisses. She likes their movement. There's not much she doesn't enjoy about animals.
Anna is growing all the time in self-awareness and the ability to plan her actions. Tonight she fed me with her fingers and, Tuesday morning when I picked her up from the bed, she gave me the nicest pats on the back.

butterflies

2009-11-11T23:53:00.002-06:00

For the homeschool co-op science class, we've been raising butterflies from larvae to adult. Fun! These painted ladies fly around our living room, mostly feeding on sugar water from a green sponge. I had to add these last garden flowers to make their lives in captivity a little more colorful. They don't much seem to care for the flowers.

a belated Halloween laugh

2009-11-11T23:46:00.005-06:00

Laugh with me. I lost the fake part of my front tooth at midnight on All Saints Day morning, when I tried opening a stubborn flip-top water bottle with my mouth. Uh huh. Now I have a photo to remember it by. I went five days without a complete front tooth and now, I'm delighted to say, I have a lovely new one.

I dressed up as a witch for Halloween. Too bad I didn't chip my tooth about six hours earlier.

The days without a complete tooth increased my compassion for people who don't have all their teeth. I found it to be a really vulnerable time, and I kept explaining my story to those who saw me. I was afraid of their (potential) judgment. Hmm.

eight months

2009-10-29T00:18:00.005-05:00

Someone sweet turned eight months old yesterday. Henry said we should try not to let her cry too much (because it was her eight month birthday day). Well, she's looking pretty happy here.

Miquon Math (which you can't see us doing here) is fun. We have abandoned Five in a Row. It is a neat concept, but isn't suiting the way we learn, which is to go with the flow, but keep practicing reading and writing. Thanks to Becky's suggestion, we're reading The Secret Garden now, and enjoying it. I savor the way Mary talks about growing fat. It's a good thing, borne of fresh air and plenty of sunshine and play. Here are our jack o'lanterns.

waking to beauty

2009-10-19T08:41:00.002-05:00

I keep in my head Thich Nhat Hanh's advice that I read in one of his books--probably The Miracle of Mindfulness--that says to put something within your view from your bed so that you can wake in beauty each day. I do have something beautiful within eyesight in my room--a handful of oak leaves with acorns attached. But this is the particular beauty (and filth) I woke to this morning. A french pressful of coffee waiting for me in the sunlight. Let the day begin. The children are still sleeping and I have some editing to do.

hello again

2009-10-18T23:02:00.005-05:00

I keep thinking about changing back to my previous blog title, writing about what's going on of late, sharing about some of the reading we've been doing, but other important things like taking care of this baby, reading, washing dishes, nursing, washing diapers, working, playing, nursing, washing diapers, washing dishes, reading, practicing piano, going for walks, going to sleep, working, studying insect life cycles...keep getting in the way.
I do so understand why Henry says he could just eat her up.

my first Michaelmas

2009-10-07T20:37:00.007-05:00

The autumn wind blows open the gate, O Michael, you, you we await.
We follow you, show us the way. With joy we greet the autumn day.

Firmly on the earth I stand, Michael's sword within my hand.
When I conquer fear the dragon's chains I tightly bind, Michael's light within my mind.

What a thrilling thing, to be involved in a procession and play planned for children and adults alike by Leeala. We welcomed autumn with song and drama. A dragon (with a cerveza cabeza, says Joel) was fought, then bound. Stick swords were wielded. A festive meal was enjoyed. See the sidebar for a photo of Erin's stunning dragon bread and some other photos taken by Erin. Thanks to Cheryl for the photos in this post.

big things are happening

2009-09-21T00:21:00.003-05:00

Last Wednesday evening Henry lost his first tooth!

Anna? Well, she's just as good at being adorable as she ever was.

a little more hidden than I would like...

2009-09-21T00:05:00.004-05:00

The wholeness in my life right now is feeling obscured. It is there, I know, but busyness and toil and a fair bit of wheel spinning are causing me to feel alienated from some of my favorite ways of renewing myself (long walks, goofing off outside with Henry, baking and cooking, reading). Our family is too busy and struggling too much to make ends meet. I am not caring for myself or Joel as much as I would like to.

This will change. Right now life is intense, though, and I need an added measure of love, patience, hope and gentleness. And probably a booster of resolve, too. Any other suggestions?

A fond memory of the weekend is the day we spent at the cabin with friends. Henry got gloriously dirty and expended a colossal amount of energy. Joel painted in the bunkhouse. Anna and I had a nap on a hammock in a lovely hollow. We came home smelling of sweet smoke. So good.

Here are our darlings. One is missing a tooth and one is still working at her first.

more Annamania and a potential new blog title

2009-09-01T00:38:00.002-05:00

Oh, babies!

Keeping with the hidden wholeness idea of the previous post, I'm trying out a new title for this blog, Hidden Wholeness Homeschool. Don't know yet what I think, as I'm pretty attached to my old name, but I'm also growing in a new direction.

a new school year

2009-08-31T23:25:00.005-05:00

Today, accidentally on Maria Montessori's birthday, we began our new home school year. I feel a little sheepish saying this because, the deeper I immerse myself in the homeschooling milieu, the more I see that the school year never ends. Life hands us opportunity after opportunity to learn. I suppose the reason I personally wanted to give the new school year a bit of a kick-off is that Joel and I are implementing (I suppose you could say imposing on Henry) a bit (just the merest bit) more of a daily routine. At nearly seven, Henry's up for it, though I want to do my best to listen to him with respect and adapt the schedule to his and our needs.

We're also experimenting with a curriculum, Five in a Row, which many homeschoolers may (or may not) be familiar with. It comes to us recommended by several homeschooling families and I like its gentle manner of approaching the disciplines of language arts, social studies, math, science and visual art through good children's literature. Not a person to be confined by too many guidelines :), I can already see us adapting the FIAR concepts to use with books our family wants to read. I'm also excited--yes, excited--to say we're going to give Miquon Math a try. After talking with another trusted homeschool parent, it sounds like Cuisenaire rods are the way for us to go. And, besides, I've read about them in more than one John Holt unschooling book.

I remember that last year I said I wanted to write a post on my/our family's homeschooling philosophy. I never did it but the why of it all is how I entertain my head every night as I'm falling asleep. Why, why, why when so many supports to help us educate Henry in the public school setting are already in place?

I realized today that, for me, it's about care of the soul--Henry's, mine, and hopefully Joel's and Anna's too. There's something so exclusive-sounding about that. My inner judge nags me, "Don't you care about the rest of the world? Do you only care about your own child?" How I would like to answer that voice today is that I long for the world to be a kinder place to the human soul, that uncorrupted part of us that never stops longing for beauty, love, adventure...wholeness.

I love the things I've read by Parker Palmer, including Let Your Life Speak. I haven't read To Know as We Are Known, but suspect I will enjoy it. I checked out another book of his lately, A Hidden Wholeness, that explores a Thomas Merton sentiment touched on here, here, and here. So, how do I see homeschooling as nurturing our hidden wholeness? It can allow children and their families to slow down, explore concepts and master skills over time. It can allow space for slow growth--even the kind of growth that can happen through down time with simultaneous PBS Kids (yes, we're a tv family) and Lego play. Homeschooling allows for discussion-based learning, for bedtime, table and anytime conversations that don't need to be curtailed because it is time to go to the next thing in the program. The subtitle of Parker Palmer's book has to do with cultivating an undivided life--a life where the outside is consistent with the inside--at work, at home, inside ourselves and in our relationships. I strive for this, and I think Parker Palmer expresses it much more eloquently than I have time to. Read his book!

Following are some more links to homeshooling posts I've found helpful from a soulful / spiritual point of view. Red Dirt Mother, Pleasant View Schoolhouse
and Harmony Valley Homeschool.

personing

2009-08-26T09:59:00.005-05:00

Oh, we love her brother so much, too, but we are sure enjoying watching this sweetheart "person." She's sitting up now and enjoying so many simple pleasures.
More photos to come. She and Henry enjoy each other. That surpasses my expectations. I thought they might lead parallel lives, which they do in many respects. But, oh!; they do play together. On Sunday we adults delighted in watching him give Anna leg-pull rides up and down Grandpa and Grandma's hallway and through the living room. She smiled all the while. Sounds a bit rough, I know. The tiny little rug burn on her back was a small price to pay for the pleasure it gave her :).

pretty dishes

2009-08-17T13:45:00.002-05:00

Pretty dishes are one of my life's joys. I brought this pile in from the car (the platter on the bottom I need to return to Libby) and set them in the sink. Just like that. There they are...dirty and so pretty. Like the movie title, Dirty Pretty Things. Good movie; you all should see it.

holding

2009-08-01T01:43:00.002-05:00

These days I don't get to hold Henry as much as I used to, but he enjoys holding Anna. On Thursday he and Anna were apart for ten hours and it was sweet to see the grin of recognition on her face when I carried her in to meet her brother at Aunt Libby's. She knows him!

Annamania

2009-08-01T01:38:00.004-05:00

At five months, she's beginning to sit and she's always reaching, reaching, reaching.

Henry was generous to share his chef hat with Anna.

She seems pleased to be wearing it.

Books I'm / we're enjoying

2009-07-17T00:12:00.008-05:00

Searching for Sacred Ground
Way back when I started this blog I promised I'd read this because of the reference to axis mundi. The book breathes the energy and awakeness of Raylene Hinz-Penner, a beloved person to me.

Marguerite Makes a Book
Beautiful illustrations, great if you're wanting to study medieval times with children.

A Door in the WallAgain, on the medieval topic, a wonderful story, engaging for both reader and those read to.

Old Mother Westwind's "How" Stories
Henry loves 'em and, in keeping with what I'm learning about the Charlotte Mason method of education, they're good "living" books.

Except for Searching for Sacred Ground, these were all checked out from the local library, along with a pile of others. What gifts! Makes me think of the quote (it's too late now to go check the refrigerator magnet that tells me who said this...) "A room without books is like a body without a soul."

Since I'm not the one reading it to Henry, I almost forgot this final beloved book of Joel's and now Henry's (since we've read through the Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy): The Silmarillion. How could I forget that? It's one of the books keeping the "soul" in our living room.

What's not to love?

2009-07-17T00:09:00.001-05:00

Her nickname is Puddin'.

two faces

2009-07-09T23:43:00.004-05:00

I've been seeing a lot of these two faces as I nurse Anna and lie in bed. One is ancient, the other new. One dark and expressive, the other light and basic. I like to see them together. (Had to photograph them outside for better light). They're poles I'm hanging out between right now...complexity versus simplicity, suffering versus joy, you get the idea.

I was reading the newest Newsweek at my folks' place today. Do you think we live in a child-centered society? That's what I thought the mag was contending? I don't know about that. I don't think so, really. We may live in a narcissistic society that encourages children not to mature, but I don't know that we really excel at honoring the needs of children, or adults, for that matter.

I like to stare, gaze I guess is the word, at Jesus on my wall. This icon sits on the prayer table in the house where I used to go to twice-weekly early morning prayers. I had missed it since moving back to Kansas, so Joel got it for me at Eighth Day Books several years ago and now it hangs by the changing table, next to the basket where Anna's doll rests.

At what have you been gazing?

centering Saturdays

2009-06-27T15:34:00.003-05:00

When Henry was an infant this day of the week used to be mine for imagining what being at home would look like--trying to pack so much domesticity and mother love into a single day of the week.

No more! Now Saturdays are my day for all sorts of things: cleaning (maybe), cooking (hopefully), dreaming (sometimes maybe too much), sweating as I blog (oh, the toil!), staring down at my dirty feet while I wear a silk skirt and think about my daughter asleep on the bed and my son tucked away in the basement, how we're going outside soon...I hope, how there is so much to do, so, so much to do, how summer is here and it is hot, even with central air, how peaches purchased at Walmart can still taste good and summery even though they don't embody the food practices I aspire to keep.

How down time, unstructured time, has since childhood helped my soul to form. It is the best therapy I know, helping angers to subside and constructive problem-solving to take firmer hold. I wish I could show a photo of every lived-in corner of this house. It is a good place and also a place in need of cleaning and prayer. There are comfy baby spots, clean laundry spots, puzzle spots, hard-edged toy spots, dusty corners stacked with piles of good intentions.

It is time to rise from this place and take hold of the time I have until Anna wakes up. And as I go I remember this very, very good poem.

more photos

2009-06-24T01:15:00.004-05:00

Before she and her family left for a 14-week sabbatical, Yolanda took these pictures of Anna and the rest of us. I'm so glad she did. There's more to share, and I may finally get some photos sent to family far away.

Ahh. It's all worth the effort. ...And it has taken quite a lot of effort!

a summer afternoon

2009-06-09T23:04:00.005-05:00

Saturday afternoon was warm and fair...one of our first long afternoons in the back yard sun and shade. I thought my children were not able to fall asleep without parental support, but Anna is content as can be outside staring up into the sky and branches. She lay on her lambskin for an hour, gazing and sleeping, while I planted some seeds and tended to some of her brother's needs.What a gift she gave us (and herself). It was a lovely afternoon.

remember, remember

2009-06-02T21:38:00.005-05:00

As Anna cries to request my help in getting her into her morning nap groove, I'm not always aware she's making the request. I get annoyed. I look at the piles of dishes and laundry, at the piles of bills and papers to file, at Henry, who needs some attention, too, at my disheveled image in the mirror and think, "Baby, be quiet! Let me put you down."

What she needs is just the opposite. Today I carried her in a front hold, feet crossed lotus-style (Henry liked that, too). She calmed right down as I proceeded with my morning chores, wanting only to be taken along. Before I knew it she was asleep. What a privilege to carry a baby. A year ago I had just learned that I might become the mother of a second living child. Wow.

Remember, remember
the sacredness of things
Running streams and dwellings
The young within the nest
A hearth for sacred fire
The holy flame of fire

This Pawnee blessing comes from a book by Andrew Harvey (love him) and is excerpted here.

Sunday evening post

2009-05-25T00:46:00.008-05:00

On Sunday evening I got to spend extra quiet and relaxing time with this darling perusing these interesting materials (the catalogs are just the eye candy I'd been waiting for; thanks, Leeala) while Joel and Henry prototyped a game that has to do with wolves and sheep.

Even though we're self-employed and employed without benefits, it has been nice to soak up the blessed quietness of a holiday weekend.

Tomorrow I will attempt my first feed-a-multitude potato salad. It will be basic: yellow mustard, potatoes, hard-cooked eggs, vinegar, mayonnaise, heavy cream, a little sugar. I'm nervous, but excited, too. My mother's potato salad is oh, so good. I don't care for the recipes that include pickle relish, so mine will just be that lovely pale yellow color I associate with summer evening meals.

home learning

2009-05-19T09:48:00.004-05:00

Yesterday Henry read his first book. I took lots of pictures as the two of them read because their faces changed in the most expressive ways. Couldn't quite capture the glee on his face when he read "fight, fight, we fight all night."

Meanwhile, Anna and I watched. She's doing her own learning, swatting the toys on her bouncy seat with great fervor.

siblings

2009-05-14T08:36:00.002-05:00

The sibling relationship is not always easy, but it is coming along beautifully. Henry doesn't like it when Anna cries for extended periods of time...like in the car when I am driving and we have already stopped at a rest stop once to nurse and ...

Mostly, though, I've been amazed by how he has welcomed her into his life, ooohing and aaahing. Someone asked me if it wasn't nice to have Henry off to school during the day so that I could have time with Anna alone. Actually, I like it better the way it is. Being home together except for Wednesdays and Thursdays makes it nicer and easier for us to be together. Time spent together strengthens our relationships and helps us appreciate the rhythms we share and those that are unique to each person.

sharing sleep

2009-05-14T08:30:00.003-05:00

Henry called for me early this morning, so Anna and I both went to join him. Anna is learning to share sleep with everyone in her family--including her big brother, who sometimes puts his arm around her as she sleeps.

Last night Anna fell asleep gazing at Joel. She fussed when we turned out the light, so we kept it on and she just watched Joel as he smiled at her and his eyes grew heavy with sleep. I peeked around to look at her eyes and they were still wide open, gazing at her daddy.

Sharing sleep has been a wonderful way for our family to stay connected through the tense times and busy days that come around.

compassion

2009-05-03T18:59:00.002-05:00

To those who read the previous post, thank you. Thank you for having compassion on me working with my grief over needing to leave my baby when at my place of employment. Really, what's life about but learning to live with our stuff and finding the courage to work on it? Again and again I'm reminded that there are so many ways to get from here to there. Thanks for looking through one of my windows. Love and joy to all mothers, working at home and away from home, loving their children all the while.

sleepy treatise on nursing and working

2009-05-02T21:52:00.007-05:00

Here she is at about eight weeks--photo taken about a week ago. We went for her two-month check-up yesterday and learned she's 12# 10 oz. in the nude. Way to go, Anna! Her onesie comes from Paul, who works here.

I've had the idea for this post in my head for days, but I'm too tired now to carry it out with as much thought as I had intended. Just read this blogger's post about the breastfeeding relationship and carrying it out over the long-er haul. I'm happy for her that she's going to a really cool writers' workshop, but sad that women who work "outside the home," to use that quaint turn of phrase, are constantly expected to put their children's needs behind those of their employers/vocations.

Yes, I know it is important to ply oneself to the task at hand, but I don't understand why working mothers, especially the mothers of children under a year, are not afforded more options in deciding how to mother and how to continue the breastfeeding relationship through at least the first year of the baby's life.

What might these options be? More U. S. employers, according to a recent NPR report, are making it possible for infants under six months to accompany their mothers to work. It is my humble opinion that, were the work world to take this idea seriously, interested nursing-working mothers from all sectors of the work world would do their best to make the arrangement worthwhile for employer and employee alike. I work as a chaplain in a long-term care setting and believe that, with the support of my mother (who is Anna's caregiver on the days I work), I could successfully have lovely Anna with me 40 to 80 per cent (or maybe more) of the time I'm on the job. Moreover, I think the women who work alongside me as nurse aides, nurses and med. aides could also, with a staffed baby room within a 30-second walk, have their babies (held safely in slings) close by much of the time they are working.

Another option, of course, would be that our nation could grant mothers / families twelve months of maternity or paternity leave when a baby is born. Right there we could do so much to ensure successful mother-baby breastfeeding relationships for at least the first year of life. And save ourselves some money in health care expenses, too, considering all that's been written about how breastfeeding ensures good health for the mother-child dyad.

For me, full-time ministry and full-time mothering don't mix. I feel too divided in my soul if I have to choose (in the middle of the night or on a birthday or too many week nights in a row) between my children and my career. I want my children to win, because I'm the only mother they have. Even working fewer hours than I did before Anna was born (about twelve now instead of about sixteen), those two days of working outside the home take me four days to catch up from.

When Henry was an infant I nursed him in the middle of the day and then pumped my milk in the morning and afternoon. I felt okay about this arrangement. It seemed like the best it could be given the circumstances. I was thankful to have a husband who was committed to getting our baby to me once a day. Now, thanks to my mother (who lives a short walk from my office) and my employer's willingness to let me be flexible with my schedule, I don't even have to pump. My nursing relationship with Anna can continue on work days and at-home days.

Here's the thing: like many women in the workforce, if I were to quit my very meaningful job right now (or if I were to be "terminated"), Joel and I would face great difficulty continuing to feed and house our family. The money I earn is not recreational or even savings money; it is essential to our family's well-being. True, we'd come up with some kind of alternative; we'd have to. But that alternative may well be my going back to full-time work in a lower paying job, taking both Joel and me away from home and our children nearly 100 per cent of the work week.

Oh, my earnest prayer is that all families would have the security they need to start their children off in the world. I wish all mothers who want to could breastfeed their infants 100 per cent of the time. If you're passionate about this topic, you might read this and listen to this. After listening to that last link, I felt exceptionally ambivalent about the National Organization for Women.

Lab 87-6

2009-04-27T17:27:00.003-05:00

Here is Lab 87-6 and its accompanying vehicles. Made by Henry back in March. My, he can keep track of the smallest pieces. ...And he expects me to do the same.

We think Anna Kate is great!

2009-04-27T14:42:00.006-05:00

My people.

Here she is in all her eight-week-old splendor.

more photos

2009-03-30T15:32:00.004-05:00

Some days I'm surprised to wake up and be the mother of two!

I knitted this hat for the baby to come. Looks like baby torture to me.
But it was my first "serious" project, and a lot of fun to knit.

home with Anna Kate

2009-03-07T14:43:00.004-06:00

Coming home from the hospital to a new lambskin for Anna and coffee and "jewish rolls" made by my mama was wonderful.

Four days oldSeven days old...at her doctor appointment yesterday we learned she had already regained her birth weight and an extra three and a half ounces :).

the birth of Anna Kate

2009-03-06T23:49:00.015-06:00

It started last Friday evening, casual and cozy, with Joel, Yolanda, Bianca, then Becky. Henry and Noah and Eric, too. The moon was a pregnant crescent with a star below it.

Joel repaired the piano bench I had broken earlier in the week. With the support of Bianca and our two chosen companions I labored at home till 4:00 a.m. Then we drove to the hospital.Transition was amazingly hard. And amazingly amazing. Anna Kate was born at 6:23 a.m. on Saturday, February 28, one week past her due date. Pushing her out was one of my life's most unforgettable experiences.Welcome, Anna Kate, 8 lbs. 4 oz., 19.5 inches long. Your birth was everything I had hoped for: a safe, loving, natural VBAC. No meds, no external fetal monitoring, no interventions, made possible through Mystery, a supportive husband, an i.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.e. doula, dear friend/sisters, the prayers of dozens and dozens of people. Made possible by my body, made to do just what it did. Made possible by you, Anna Kate, because you made your way through. Welcome, welcome, welcome!

My gratitude to Yolanda for taking all these photos to help me keep those thirteen hours of labor and the following moments in my heart and mind. Being the clergy person I am, I can't help but paraphrase a favorite verse of mine from Ephesians:

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to You be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

so you can imagine we were really there

2009-02-25T23:31:00.003-06:00

Henry thought it would be so neat if I would post this picture I took (at his request) of President Obama (at his recent speech before congress) so that people would think we were really there! You'll have to imagine the KPTS call letters and PBS logo out of the screen.

blessings

2009-02-25T23:24:00.007-06:00

A few days after my last post women gathered at our house for a belated Candlemas / Imbolc birth blessing led by Jen and Yolanda. Here are some of the beautiful images they painted on my belly.One of the evening's rituals included planting birthing blessings into the soil in this bowl. A week or so later, I planted nasturtium seeds in amongst the blessings.

with great trust

2009-02-03T23:32:00.008-06:00

About a year after I began blogging, a year after a second miscarriage, we wait for a second child, due around February 20. I met Rainer Maria Rilke when I was sixteen through his book Letters to a Young Poet. I'm not sixteen anymore, but a 38-year-old mother. Rilke's words, though, ring truer than ever.

Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms...

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you
because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

...[B]ut take whatever comes with great trust.

Wow! I have no idea how this is all going to shake out...how we will become a family of four. But I'm taking it with great trust...as much of the time as I can, and trying to knit my way through uncertainty. I hope to show photos of that endeavor soon.

from my mother's files

2009-01-27T09:04:00.002-06:00

The cleaning work continues...and I'm so lucky to have friends who have helped and will help me. Now I'd just better ask them. Anyway, here's a funny paper I'm going to recycle after I share it here on my blog. So true!

calling Ms. Kristin

2009-01-26T22:20:00.004-06:00

In these last weeks of pregnancy I am trying to bring some order to places in the house that are delightfully dis-ordered. I long to see this drawer through your eyes and lens, Ms. Kristin, because there are so many treasures in it. The problem is, my house is full of treasures. I have a husband and son who want to hold on to everything (which is in many ways cool, because there are some cute little ca. 1984 plastic finger puppets in here, as well as other odd and interesting stuff) and a very low personal tolerance for plastic storage bins.

six years old

2009-01-10T15:40:00.005-06:00

On December 27 our family system gathered to celebrate Henry's sixth full year as an out-of-the-womb participant in our solar system.

The theme of the cake was out-of-our solar system.

Here's to a fine six-year-old ready to serve the world!

Christmastide 2008

2009-01-10T15:33:00.011-06:00

This Christmas I contemplated saving graces and well-loved images from long ago

and icons of new hope for our time--thanks to you, Aunt Lib.
Barack, don't mean to put too much pressure on you!
You don't have to be super-human;
just please be decent and we'll be so very proud of you.

Epiphanies were experienced along the way

in the form of beautiful morning light,

table fellowship,

and birthdays of two dear family members--Elizabeth and Henry.

twelfth night

2009-01-05T23:01:00.003-06:00

Here it is, the end of the Christmas season. I have photos and stories I would like to share but there's not time for that right now. I am feeling a delightful fullness at eleven p.m. What a long, full day it has been, but satisfying. The lights and ornaments on our beautiful tree keep me company as I reflect on the day. It began, atypically, at 6:30 a.m. I woke, dressed (with lots of layers), drove across town to order and pay for our milk and eggs, drove back, woke Henry at a little after 7:00, watched a bit of Curious George with him, ate part of my homemade yogurt, homemade granola and crunchy apple breakfast, zipped out the door at 7:30 for a three mile walk--yippee!, came back, got ready for our dear neighbor to come over and play with Henry, watched the boys play as I tried to get a few things done around the house. Had a mid-morning sweet potato, red pickled cabbage, pickle, broccoli snack, took them out on an errand, came back home, ate grass-fed t-bone steak and sweet potato and more broccoli an pickle for lunch, hurried, hurried, hurried out the door to get Henry to the nature center in time for our class. Enjoyed the class conducted around the theme of "Duck, Goose or Swan?" that included a jeopardy-style contest between parents and children--so much fun and challenging to my limited powers of observation, enjoyed a slow ride (with apple, nuts and chocolate chips) to the doctor's office as my I-wish midwife and for-real doula drove Henry and her boy to art club, savored the doctor's words to "keep it boring," (that's just soothing to me because he seems to think my having a vbac is so profoundly uninteresting...which is just what I was hoping for in a doctor), sat down and visited with my friend/doula (yippee again), had delicious gelato with the boys and the doula friend at a nearby cafe, hurried home, let Henry off at the front door, zipped to Hesston, where I pretended to lead the retirement community's men's chorus, stopped by to see my parents in their new apartment, drove back home, stopping by on the way to pick up our milk and eggs, groused and yelled when I walked in the door about the table not being cleared of lunch dishes and socks being on the floor (what good that did, I really don't know; think it was useless, unwelcome complaining), watched a little of a special on the advent of Buddhism on PBS, helped Henry get ready for bead, talked with his two Webkins and watched him draw in his diary, began to read chapter 21 of Little House on the Prairie, went to the bathroom while Joel read on, kissed Henry good night, came to the kitchen to make something to eat...more sweet potato, this time festooned with some cilantro, green onion, some chunks of elderly avocado, plenty of salt and butter, some more pieces of t-bone steak, finished off with the last piece of Sara's Christmas baklava. Now it is time for bed. Whew! Thank you, God. Thank you, life.

THE tree for proud prairie people

2008-12-22T15:34:00.002-06:00

Here is the delight of my day, yesterday and today. We crossed a frozen creek and a rocky pass, then climbed a prairie ridge to get to this beauty. The quest to get her was exhilarating. The aroma infusing our house is, to my nostrils, heavenly. The cause we contributed to when we paid for the privilege of hiking and chopping, righteous. Oh, I'm a zealot about so many things...including this kind of tree. The humble cedar/juniper is the tree for me. Always has been. Locally grown, fragrant, zero environmental impact to harvest...probably there's an environmental benefit to harvest, because (thanks to the birds) there are too many of them interfering with the prairie landscape.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!
Thou tree most fair and lovely!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Thou tree most fair and lovely!

The sight of thee at Christmastide
spreads hope and gladness far and wide.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!
Thou tree most fair and lovely!

130-in-one!

2008-12-19T10:20:00.005-06:00

Oh, the delight of watching little hands work on this fun project when I came home from work yesterday. Henry taught me the ropes with ease and confidence and we completed the circuits for this chirping bird. Then I made sugar cookie dough and yogurt and we listened to more of Analise's Advent Journey.

Today's the day to get down the Christmas decorations, get the house ready for our tree and bake cookies! We are being remembered by so many dear friends with cookies and kind gestures and words that I really long to return the favor.

Peace of the Advent season to you!

desk work and daddy love

2008-12-09T11:16:00.003-06:00

A little desk work for a sunny day.

Boy loooooves Daddy.

this is thirty-eight

2008-12-04T23:07:00.003-06:00

I'm thirty-eight tomorrow evening. There's a baby growing in me, doing a lot of kicking, but you can't see the belly very clearly. (We always have trouble with this camera at night. Daytime shots are simply the best. So maybe Joel will take another picture that I can post tomorrow). I enjoy my birthdays and try to make sure each one includes a solitary walk, if possible. Two years ago I walked twelve miles for my thirty-sixth birthday. What a walk and day that was. I was quitting the chaplaincy position (that I later resumed at 40% time) that I had held for 6+ years, and wanted to commemorate this transition by walking the route I had driven so many times before. I felt liberated on my journey. And dehydrated. I didn't take any water with me, and that was a mistake. But it was a joyful journey and that's what I feel on my birthday. I can say with Gerard Manley Hopkins, "...for all this, there lives the dearest freshness deep down things." Birthdays, delights and struggles all come and go. But, above all, there is still life. I am so thankful to have this life to live. And I feel blessed to be carrying another child. An amazing gift on my thirty-eighth birthday eve.

meanwhile...

2008-12-03T22:45:00.007-06:00

While Aunt Libby and I sewed Advent calendars on Saturday, Henry and cousins painted their faces. He wanted me to photograph these faces for future reference-- in case he needs to remember how he made white circles around his eyes, a lightning bolt on the forehead, and white fangs below the mouth. I love the toughness and tenderness of my boy. We have been listening to an unfolding Advent story, The Advent Journey of Analise, and enjoying it.

Thank you, John Keats

2008-11-23T23:29:00.011-06:00

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness;

but still will keep a bower quiet for us

and a sleep, full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing a flowery band
to bind us to the earth.

...yes, in spite of all, some shape of beauty
moves away the pall from our dark spirits...

sights to see

2008-11-19T22:06:00.006-06:00

I've been missing my garden zinnias and all the color they brought to the table. Here are some berries scavenged from a burning bush. Up close they remind me so much of bittersweet, which I'll have to plant some day. On the way home from our walk I found dozens of juniper berries pooled in the cracks of the sidewalk. I took some inside to fill an acorn cup and the hole in a rock Henry found.

One of my home's places of refuge...under the spider plant that was out on the porch all summer.On Saturday Henry and I went to the bookshop to enjoy their Second Saturday for Kids. He could have spent the entire morning working the cold, smooth clay that Hanna set out on the concrete floor. He made a couple pinch pots, a dam (on the left) and some other things. Joel's parents gave us the Christmas cactus when Henry was born and we have enjoyed watching it flower most years...sometimes more than once. This year Henry's paid special attention to the blossoms opening.

notes from the middle of November

2008-11-13T23:10:00.003-06:00

Hello blogland friends,

I'm excited to share my new header. Henry designed this cinderella pumpkin to have fangs on top, but they've curled under now, leaving a friendly, gaping maw to greet me when I walk up the front steps. The quotation from Hafiz is from my bathroom calendar, and I just find it appropriate in so many ways.

I'm not all that fond of November, but it does hold things to recommend it to us: the maturation of autumn, the constant awareness in this month of remembrance that we are not alone. Other souls have walked this ground before us. I'm very mindful of that at the beginning of November with All Saints/All Souls days. We don't observe these days in any big way as a family. Personally, though, I can't help but feel the ache of those I know who are filled with questions about where they are going and where they have been--the ache of those who have more friends on the other side of this life than on the side we're on.

I had the most comforting conversation about disillusionment yesterday. It was one of my work days, and I was sitting at a round table with some elders I love and admire. What honest observations they made about their lives. Why is it, we wondered together, that you get to the next "chapter" and you still don't have it all figured out? Seems to have little to do with being a "person of faith." Somehow life's losses tend to lead us deeper and deeper into mystery and the wildness of our being.

It was good for me to be reminded that I have probably said a lot of things intended to be comforting that have been received as nothing more than well-meaning platitudes. What was so heartening about the conversation is that I can stow these thoughts away. If I'm granted the long life I hope to have, I want to remember with gratitude the friends who said, "It's not easy getting old. I'm just as confused now as I ever was." I want to remember them and how beautiful it was to see them wondering and loving, learning and struggling. Let me be like that. That's the kind of faith I want.

On a different note, I have felt buoyed along by the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the office of President of the United States. Joel and I stayed up late watching the returns and I went to sleep filled with the hope that we're entering into a new era that might hold transformation for our nation. I pray for this new president-elect in a way that I've never prayed for leaders before. That he may be wise and grounded and visionary and conciliatory. Already I've been shocked as I've heard him talking about killing Osama bin Laden. I am aware that I can't expect all things of a finite human being and that the heart of transformation is really my own response to life. Yet I feel hopeful and thankful and I'm not taking either of these things for granted.

I'm a big Michael Pollan fan and hope you'll have time to listen to this interview on his Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief. I hope our president-elect has made time to listen.

Days and nights have been pretty sweet in our home of late. Henry is bonding with my pregnant belly, which I hope to share photos of sometime. We're reading Riki Tiki Tavi thanks to a visit to the cousins' house, Little House in the Big Woods, and The Two Towers. The Tolkien books continue to be our family bedtime reading routine and I delight in hearing Henry sigh as he falls into bed, snuggles up and settles down to hear more of this fabulous tale. It pleases Joel to be the reader.

Oh, each day holds its own frustrations and nagging questions, but I'm so very thankful for my little family and our little home and all the family and friends who love us. November, I am thankful for you and want to savor your remaining days.

2008-10-28T22:48:00.003-05:00

Remembering you by candle light, Katie.

an emerging perspective on education

2008-10-21T04:48:00.008-05:00

Our word educate comes from the Greek word "to give," if memory is serving me correctly. In education we are introduced to vantage points from which to view the world. I hope for Henry's life windows to be broad enough to capture many, many different views.Play is the primary work of childhood. Responsibility is important, but identity (and initiative) emerge from play. I am so grateful for memories of my mother saying something to the effect of, "I will do this work right now. Your job is to play." My friend Jen's family of origin said it well on the walls of the home where they once lived: "The days that make us happy make us wise."

Whether or not he values these things now, I hope for Henry's life to be full of the real deal: real flowers, homemade food, things made and repaired by human hands belonging to people he loves.

_______

Learning happens all the time. I want to give our days together enough structure to hold us in, but enough freedom to allow all three (and then four) of us to do what we need and want to do.

I try the intentional "lesson" on occasion, but we seem to be rearing a boy who prefers learning through his own initiative. Perhaps he would thrive in a classroom setting where the learning goals are set out for him. Perhaps he would not. What I know is that I love, love, love it when he spells out words for me and asks me what they are. Yesterday's finds from an Arby's animal identification kit: s-w-i-f-t-f-o-x, m-o-u-n-t-a-i-n-g-o-a-t and skunk ("...but I already knew that one," he told me). I love learning things together, like the fact that most birds in the world are "passerine" (I think), but the hornbill (which we will be studying at the homeschool co-op this week) is non-passerine, meaning it doesn't sing a song and its young are (probably ...maybe?) precocial (don't need feeding from parents) as opposed to altricial, which means needing feeding...

I want to acquire some Waldorf main lesson books for drawing, but right now we are content doing daily journal entries in the little green diary with a lock on it that he requested when we went to buy school supplies.

I am beginning to feel a little more happily placed as a "home-schooling mom" even though that label still makes me bristle a bit if I stop to consider the assumptions about me it may cause others to form.

Glory be!

I sewed an apron

2008-10-12T22:49:00.005-05:00

Despite the fact that the photos are fuzzy and that I think the first picture makes me look like I have no teeth, I want to share with you the apron I made. The thrift-shop fabric had been in the middle of a pile in my bedroom until I cleaned out Joel's closet and made room for my sewing things. I had dreams of making an apron of this cloth, but it had been so long since I had sewn anything that I doubted this idea would ever come to fruition. It did, though. A pattern of my own devising. I even made a buttonhole, with Joel's help. I was amazed that I could make crude gathers under the bib. Despite thinking I never paid attention, I remember a thing or two from my mother's years of sewing for us!
The shell button is from my maternal grandma's collection. The tie in the back is the same red gauzy fabric that I used for the neck strap. I loved making this apron. It was so satisfying to come up with a plan for it and carry that plan out. Can't wait to sew some more things for the sheer fun of it. The added benefit of the apron is that I have needed it. Since I'm borrowing so many maternity clothes (mostly from my dear sister-in-law), I want to take good care of them and that means none of my customary kitchen grease spots. Thank you to my mother and sister for sharing a wonderful new button-hole-ready Singer with me. What a gift!

fall harvest

2008-10-09T21:37:00.004-05:00

What a beautiful day was Tuesday. After spending weeks looking out the window to see our deflated pool lying on the ground, Joel and I used this sunny autumn day to clean and cut up pieces of our defective pool and turn them into fodder for a water slide next summer. While Joel was fixing our mop with screws, I did a little weeding and harvesting. Above are the zinnias and cosmos I picked.And here is my very first brandywine of the season--harvested on October 7! Also, chard, yellow peppers on their way to turning and, underneath it all, jalapenos.
Henry played outside on the swing and in the dirt and sand. A joyful, joyful morning that helped me breathe deeply and believe we'll eventually be able to make room and a way for the baby that is coming.

resting in loving arms

2008-09-28T23:08:00.006-05:00

Beverly and Daddy, in the kitchen a long time ago.
Hope you'll forgive me for not asking permission, Dad.

I don't know how kosher it is to tell other people that you read the book they loaned you while sitting in the bathroom, but here's a quotation from a lovely book that came to live with me for a while after a leisurely conversation with my neighbors in their living room. Because it's so good I decided to buy it on Amazon for a penny. Thank you, neighbors. I had clean hands while reading! (Sorry my purchase is not bringing in any more money for you, Wendy Wright. You deserve it).

It is hard for any of us truly to accept our own vulnerability and insufficiency--both for each other and for God. Parents, it seems to me, are especially prone to harbor illusions of self-sufficiency. We who care for the young, who are called to be providers, shelterers, healers, teachers and question-answerers for our children easily forget our own neediness. We forget that we too are children whose hearts must be open, trusting and in need of God's deep embrace where all joy, all suffering is felt and borne. We must discover our true childhood so that we can return home, seeking those arms.

It is an art--a profoundly spiritual art--to learn to 'lean into' or live consciously one's own need for God and others. Part of that art involves discernment of the seeming 'needfulness' that is rooted not in love of God but in self-deprecation. Deep within the divine embrace the self is always recognized as infinitely precious, worthy of dignity and respect. One discovers one's essential goodness and the graced quality of one's life. When lack of self-worth, experiencing oneself as rightfully a victim or the absence of healthy self-love are detected, it is time to come closer into the aura of love that God projects. It is time to lean against God's heart to feel the gentle reminders that each of us is a gift, each created for the fullness of human dignity. In that embrace one discovers true needfulness and vulnerability, the heart of the beloved child that rests in loving arms and finds there its peaceful home.

I don't know exactly why, but this struck me just the right way as I read it. It has been a day of resting in loving arms. A peaceful contrast to the conflict-driven week I just finished.

now I know why they call it red lobster

2008-09-22T11:49:00.003-05:00

Blogging gives me joy because it provides a place to squirrel away the little sights that make me happy. Yesterday Grandma and Grandpa Ewy took us to Red Lobster for lunch and, on the way there, Henry announced he would be having lobster for lunch. My first response was to want to say, "No, dear, that's too expensive." Thinking of this unschooling mentor I instead chose to say, "Let's talk more about that." At the restaurant Henry spent time around the lobster tank with other kids and Joel and I decided it would be okay for him to try the lobster. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa E for treating him to it!

Henry got to choose the lobster out of the tank and crack its beautiful red shell open with the cracker. He liked the claw meat best, but I don't think he will be wanting it again. Still, what an adventure.

Since lobster shells don't enter this prairie household just every day I thought I'd include a few pictures to show how half the red lobster's body is fitting into our home. Here's an odd still life with brandywine tomato, homegrown sunflower seeds awaiting roasting, an acorn and some Kansas pecans in need of shelling. What an unlikely combination! And yet I think they suit each other well.

shine on, harvest moon

2008-09-16T04:48:00.003-05:00

I don't know how/if I can take better night-time photos with my little $40.00 toy, but here is the ripe harvest moon descending in our back yard. I'm thankful for the clear view of it.

Last night we went to a harvest moon celebration in Wichita and ate two flavorful stews, fresh bread, pumpkin bread and apple betty. The best parts for me were watching the children practice poems from A Journey through Time in Verse and Rhyme (that they never actually performed because they were too busy playing) and seeing Henry carry out the part of the wind in the little play they did do on the deck. He blew the leaves off the tree with style.

pregnant morning

2008-09-10T07:06:00.004-05:00

I awoke early, a little before six, to a hungry stomach. The morning light was gray and all was quiet--five-year-old sleeping with stuffed animal friends, husband deep in sleep. I filled my bowl with (mostly) locally grown and prepared food--chopped apple, yogurt, granola and ate in gratitude. What a pleasure to tend my body's needs as influenced by the growing baby inside me.

I am thankful that today we can pay our health insurance premium, just as we knew we must do but didn't know exactly how we would do. I am thankful for the myriad things that have been shared with our family of late: cider, apples, applesauce, yogurt, a work of art, time, new insights, maternity clothes, listening space.

I am thankful for Joel--not only his wonderful being, but his practical skills, his knowledge gained through years of experience, his ability to sit with problems, think them through and then repair what needs repairing. These gifts are vital to our family, literally turning work to bread (and health insurance).

I am thankful for four grandparents for Henry, dear computer customers, meaningful work at home and in my place of ministry, September weather in the northern hemisphere and the mystery of God at work in the Universe. Also thankful to have read this interview this morning and for my dad, whose thoughts on basketball can be read here.

for Spinning Lizzie / Red Dirt Mother

2008-09-09T22:02:00.003-05:00

"Catch a random thought...
between thumb and finger...
and then in faith and hope,
tie
one end down
firmly...
follow its lead
trusting
splicing in
following with fingertips
through all its vicissitudes
consequences down the hallways of its joys
and its terrors
snap
return
to the interruption
the snarl
know it and name it
feel its feelings
follow them
to where fear throws up a wall
builds blockage
distraction
from the flow
to lead you away
and yet,
stay with it
remain
with the point of interruption
weep it out
until you experience
a breakthrough.
There, pick up the thread again
and be led
from flax to thread
to the holy face
to Mystery."

Gertrud Mueller Nelson
Here All Dwell Free, p. 240

cabin views

2008-09-09T00:11:00.008-05:00

Here is a sunset from last week, Labor Day, at the new family cabin in the red dirt hills...taken from the balcony.
And here's a front view. It was a dusty, windy day.
And here I am, marveling that this place is for me, too. These are the prairie hills my mother-in-law grew up with, riding her horse through the pastures with her dad.

blue summer joy

2008-09-01T00:00:00.004-05:00

What other words can describe this inspired summer pleasure, shared between neighbors? Blue joy. Thank you, water. Thank you, neighbors. I want to jump in right now.Swimming pool, it's hard to say good-bye for a while, but I'm not giving you the care you deserve. Rest well over the winter. We'll patch your holes...or something and look forward to another summer of blue joy in 2009. Thank you again!

icu nurok

2008-08-31T23:40:00.004-05:00

I can't get this silly They Might Be Giants song out of my head. We have been listening to it a lot lately, partly because Henry is enjoying the album more now that he is beginning to do a little (more) reading and sounding out. What a curious thing it is (to a five-year-old and a 37-yr-old) that letters can mean or at least sound like words. Here are the lyrics to the song I'm thinking of along with a translation link.

urnx
urnx, ni, imnx
ictv
ictv, nicu
icu, icu, nurok
urnx
urnx, ni, iw
icatv, icadvd, nicu
icu, icu, nurok
icu, icu, nurok

remembering Goldie, ? to 8-?-08

2008-08-24T16:34:00.003-05:00

Last night as Henry was falling asleep I was keenly aware of no sound coming from our hamster Goldie's cage. I had been concerned about her all day, but thought I would listen last night for her noises and then decide what to do in the morning. This afternoon I remembered my concern. Earlier in the week I had fed her nice, organic romaine and Joel and I both noticed that she looked shaky when she woke up the following evening, but we didn't say anything to Henry.

I checked on her this afternoon, since I couldn't see a trace of her this morning, and discovered her body, little hamster soul already with her maker. Goldie, we loved you and we will miss you. Rest in peace.