home, finally.

Who would have thought that this humble little bach that we call home could ever hold such contentment and joy for me as it does now.

Certainly not me.

The weekend we moved in here, all I remember is crying.

The state of the building and the size of the place meant that the Real Estate Agent assumed we would demolish this little bach and build something new.

What he didn't realise was that we were beaten down from  2 years of spending a large portion of our income and too much emotional energy on a section we had bought in the area; a section that we originally thought would save us money rather than cost us more than we could ever have imagined.

When we had bought the section we were optimistic; we were on a single income, we were good at living on the smell of an oily rag and we were comfortable with building a very simple abode. Naievely we couldn't imagine that a floor, four walls and a roof would cost that much.
The section we had bought was steep, we knew that might be tricky but that too we thought we would find ways of managing.
Again, we were optimistic and had no reason not to be - things had always worked out for us in the past.
Ahem! And that's when the story changed direction :)

Quickly our naieve optimism bowed to the demands of reality; the reality of a single income carrying weekly mortgage and hefty rental payments.
This is where the story's appeal declines rapidly:)
To cut a long (3 years) and tedious story short,  we eventually discovered that we couldn't even pitch a tent on site to live in without building a retaining wall and by then we had no money or energy.
We put it on the market.

So what the Real Estate Agent didn't realise when he assumed we were a lovely middle-class family with plans for a build, was that there was no money for anything other than the necessities. 

What he didn't realise was that this little rundown bach was all our family could manage (at a stretch) and we needed it badly so as to gather together again, regain our strength and restore some harmony. We were in dire need of nurturing something that would grow and we hoped it would nurture us in return.

The weather was shocking the Summer we moved; so cold that during that first weekend we lit the fire. The house was cold, the walls and carpet were grey and I cried. 

I cried in fear for my severly stretched relationship with my dear partner Gunter.

I cried for the close friends I had left and the lose of the close community we had been immersed in.

I cried with worry for my children who had to bare the brunt of such a testing time.

I cried in fear of having to give up on our vision for giving our girls a childhood free of school so as I could help pay the bills.

I cried because at 40 I had just bought a bach, nowhere near as sound as the first house I had scrimped around and wiggled my way into at 24 years of age.

A Pity Party was the order of the day.

It has been one of those seasons of life when you wonder how on earth you ended up in this place without a soul to blame and seemingly without solution.
It's certainly been a long road to fully accept that life plays out differently than what we might have planned.
And yet there you are.
It seems that being fully present in whatever place you find yourself is really the only solution there is. 
It certainly is the only place where my life is taking place and that is where I want to be even with the grief and discomfort.
Very little has changed in reality - the section is still on the market, we still have little for extras - and yet everything has changed because finally the story in my head has changed.

This bach has been the bearer of so many unexpected gifts, the biggest being that it's size and simplicity reminds us to live humbly.
Cultivating humility undercuts this culture which screams "me, me, me" endlessly and ultimately frees us from keeping up with the race.
Living with little reminds us to be grateful for the many things that really matter in our lives - our family, our friendships, our freedom, our health.
And slowly we rebuild our internal compass, we let go of comparisons and expectations (my on and others), and we continue to wake up to our very own lives before us and the beauty they behold.

digging into the life right at my feet.

I finally find myself back in front of the screen.

The rest of the family, as well as a couple of taggers-on (is that even a word :), have just leapt into the car heading to the wharf 5 minutes down the road, boogie boards in the back.  

I have missed writing here but truly life has been just been full with Summertime goodness this last 6 weeks.

Summer has turned out to be just the good medicine that we were all seeking.

After the desolation of my mother's death, then the flurry that is December with gift-making and Christmas with my step-father, we pushed against our habit of seeking new lands and instead wanted to sink into our own backyard and the beaches just beyond. I wanted to dig in to my own life, wake up to the wonder of each day and experience what "the lazy days of Summer" might feel like if I could just let each day unfold in front of me. 

Waking up to my own life is what I am on about this Summer and for inspiration listen to this podcast with Jon Kabat-Zinn. This is a radio show that I regularly tune in to, often while cooking; it stretches my thinking in new ways and inspires insight. Thanks Renee at FIMBY where I originally found the link.

And so for six weeks now, we have stayed put and have welcomed a steady stream of friends and family into our home.  With such superb weather and mostly outside living, our little bach has managed to hold all this fullness with grace. Tenting on the lawn, swingball down the driveway, grooming and exercising the horses, carving in the carport, trapezing and trampolining and a whole lot of fellowship.
Fellowship (an old word that I am newly playing with) is something I seek where ever I go. It's fundamental to how we want to live as a family and how we want to grow our children;  to grow in community, rich in loving friendship and possibility.
And here it was, right at our doorstep, all Summer long.
The cornerstone of each day though has been our trips to the water; mostly to the wharf, sometimes to a  beach. Sometimes a 5 minute dip and other times most of the day, with rock pools, kayaking, high jumping and general sand and water fun.
These daily swims is what I think I will remember most about this Summer.

So here I am back on the blog, somewhere that I do want to be, encouraging families to design the life they dream of living and figuring out how to do it, supporting them to slow down and honor their time with their children and shining some light on growing self-directed learners so that others may grow in confident and claim learning back into the heart of their family and our communities.
This is my passion and the work I attempt to live and I do love to share it, in fellowship.

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a collection of thoughts.

Ruby's 9th birthday is a week away and recently I have found myself thinking of her a fair bit. We have spent a lot of time together over the years and have learnt to deeply understand and appreciate each other as people beyond the mama/daughter relationship.  Well, mostly that is :-). Living and learning, day in, day out, with the time, and a belief in the power of clear, compassionate communication, we have continued to grow together in love and respect . 

It may not have turned out so well - it hasn't always been as easy as it is right now. 

This reminds me of a comment I made on Lori's blog a couple of days ago- 

"This reminds me of myself and my daughter a couple of years back and our "first project." Ruby wanted to do fashion and make up. Read UGHH here. I personally rage against both- the whole young girl striving to look older, girls being overly interested in what they look like yada, yada, yada. But I knew I needed to honour her interest. I tell you it was hard but I decided to remain light and playful ("fake it till you make it" I figured.) 
The project didn't last long (phew for me :-), I relaxed when we starting making some lotions, we bumbled around - we were figuring out how to do this whole project thing. What I learnt is to respect her interests, the importance of her playing with her own ideas and me keeping my place as co-creator and not as "the one who knows what she should be learning." I also learnt about how she learns - that the fashion and make-up was deeply entwined with her dressing up and role playing, her exploring characters and story. Now I look back at this first project with fondness - in the end it had so little to do with the content and so much about the dynamics of how we do learning here at our place.

Early on as a Mama I chose to turn towards my children for the answers to my questions rather than trying to fit with others' solutions or standards; about parenting, about learning, about living well together. 

When they were babies the solutions seemed fairly clear most of the time; when they cried we gathered in close and attended to their need, when dealing with sickness, we were guided by observing the child not the thermometer (in fact we have never owned a thermometer).  

We did have a couple of detours when we thought others had the answers that we were looking for but  these soon became dead ends. Apart from just feeling wrong, they didn't deliver the silver bullet they promised. 

We gained confidence in trusting the girls in those early years and this made a life without school an obvious choice for us as a family. Not always easy nor without doubt at times, but still a comfortable fit.

I have needed all the time I have taken to become the mama that I wanted to be; to become the human being I want to be. 
A learning and life style that fits our family just right takes time to sculpt. The wrinkles of habit patterns and the knots of past hurts take time to disentangle and set free. The "shoulds" constantly need to be swept out the door. The hard edges of judgements (of myself and others, my children included) need sanding back at times. 
Compassion and patience need attention to grow and lots of practice. 
With such companions, trust takes hold.

This is all sounding a bit OTT in the psychology department to me right now but really, at 11.30 at night (and with a 5.30am start tomorrow), I just don't have time to go back and delete any of it. 
And really, it is how I feel on the cusp of being a mama to a 9 year old - an ordinary thing for many, an extraordinary thing for me right now.

horse manure and the corporate agenda

It feels like Spring here. In between a touch of painting, writing letters to friends and making solutions for growing more crystals, the girls have been on the trampoline and the swing most of today. I think the trampoline has been transformed into a ship and right now I can't help but think of all the stuff that will need bringing in before dark.
But this will wait because we are about to head out to a few people in the neighbourhood, dropping off bags of horse manure for their gardens and composts.  This is a recent offer I made on our Timebank - we have a trailer, the shovelling is good for body and soul and between you and me, I get excited by horse manure and am keen to share a good thing.
But before I go I just really wanted to share this clip from the Economics of Happiness conference earlier this year. I have been putting a few links up over on the sidebar (now working by the way) but this one I want to share here because this speaks to my heart, my politics and informs how we live our daily life.
Watch it and let us know what you think about it.

our community garden

It was our day at the community garden today.

We have been going each week since Sky was just 2 - a wee one, never saying much, just trotting around finding things to be quietly fascinated with. Some things don't change much, although she does become chattier without her big sister about.

We lived just two doors up the street then and were down there most days at some point; tending the garden, passing through on our way to the village or meeting with others at the building on site.

Now we are further away and with other interests vying for our time I recently suggested we stop going for a while.

Ruby's jaw literally fell open and Sky exclaimed "What? Not go to the community garden?"

Immediately I was could see this wasn't, in fact, a possibility. 

Which I kind of knew already.

I was relieved.

Because it's not just the environment that we enjoy - being in the weather with the dirt and plants and insects.
Nor the questions and knowledge and new skills we take away, little by little, each week.
Nor the chance to work our bodies in ways that bodies have worked for millenia (ok, to be honest, I've done very little of this for a while now).
Nor all the new people that come through on their way to somewhere else, who we get to meet and chat with and learn from (I think this is Ruby's favourite part).
And not even just the food we get to raise and harvest and eat.

What it really is, is the relationships we have forged over those years.

Relationships that feel more like whanau - aunties and uncles and cousins. 

Relationships and a community that have blessed us with the feeling of belonging and loyalty and commitment and love.

Community I have looked for all my adult life; one that shares in dreaming and rethinking community, family and living with each other on this dear earth in general.

Friendships that stick around, with the garden as the home we return to.

a bit of this and that

Today it is storming. After such a settled and warm Autumn, it feels like one of those days where the season really turns the corner.

We have been slowing down and turning more inward as Autumn has progressed, gently our own rhythms reflecting the season. I am reading and crafting more now that the nights are longer and there is just less to do in the garden.

Can I share some words from others I have been reading recently to help me re-engage here in this space?

I'm on my third reading I think of  Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto and as always have been appreciating his clarity and vision of the bigger picture.

These are an example of the words that I drink in and feel nourished by:

" ..if we regained a hold on a philosophy that locates meaning where meaning is genuinely to be found - in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy, in all the free and inexpensive things out of which reall friends, and real communities are built - then we would be so self-sufficient we would not even need the material self-sufficiency which our global experts are so insistent we be concerned about."

It seems I just never tire of his words.

our community garden lunch 

Earlier this week I  also read this article, "We have Everything We Need Already: Community Control of Education" by Shilpa Jain, a learning activist with Shikshantar in India, an organisation  I have followed over the past few years. 

I want to share her words with you here simply because they resonate. 

If you have read here for a while you will know we are passionate about our local Timebank. Timebanks are perfect examples of how communities can access a deep well of skills and knowledge right in their own community; they are excellent examples of "having everything we need right now."

Just this week Ruby has been tutored in German by a neighbour, we have stacked firewood for another neighbour and we are about to contact an elderly gentleman this afternoon keen to share his love of classical music with the girls. Learning and sharing freely, multi-generational connections and a wealth of undiscovered gems right in your own neighbourhood. 

 On stage recently (nothing to do with barefoot running).

And then last night Gunter and I watched The Garbage Warrior again for I think the fourth time. 

Watch it if you haven't.  Mike Reynolds uplifts us. 

What has remained with me from this viewing is Mike criticising a culture in which "we have lost our freedom to fail" and about the necessity of both experimentation and failure to get us (as in individuals aswell as in humanity) to new places.  This was on my mind today.  

Gunter and I have been experimenting with barefoot running inspired by others in my community of bloggers. I might write about it sometime but anyway it is new and experimental and bringing unexpected discoveries. We went out in the rain today, slowly running in our barefeet. I thought about my freedom to experiment and fail as a woman passed us on the street. I felt my embarrassment as I imagined what she might be thinking and thought about how often it is that people don't try new things because of exactly this reason? As I let go and continued running in the rain along the muddy path in my barefeet, I embraced Mike's enthusiasm for experimentation, whatever the outcome. There is a feeling of freedom about it.

Thanks for allowing me to empty a bit of my brain out onto this page today. The house is finally warm and the girls have friends over - such a small house fills up fast. Gunter has begun preparing dinner and I'm off into the whirl of the pre-dinner clean up.

writing the story

Oh, the weekend.

These wild places are the places we want to be with the girls. 

We want these places to part of our family story; walking the vast landscapes and breathing in the big sky.  

We also want to learn what we can about the places that we go.

This weekend away for us was sandwiched between a trip to friends and a trip to family but sometimes you need to just say yes to opportunities and carve out the time that will help write that story.

Among other things (like the landscape and of the beauty and of the new species we met, all of which I find impossible to write about without a slightly ranting tone.) I'm excited all over again about The Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) and the superb community resource for hands-on learning it provides to our families.

People sharing their knowledge and skills, organising activities, trips and speakers, chances to meet new families and everything with the barest cost attached.

Without this KCC trip, we might never have gone to these places nor have learnt all that we did about the place and those that live there in the streams, under rocks and in the air.

Building active learning communities depend on this culture of sharing and volunteering for the common good.

It feels good to be part of it.

Sunday morning Sky walked with me along the upper reaches of the Rangitata river. She was barefoot, her arms held out, palms upward. She looked at around and said;
"Now we are here we don't have to do anything. I just love being here and walking on the dirt and seeing everything. It's beautiful. Just reeeeeally beautiful"

living streets

Fairy houses on the berm of the neighbour's property with a note tucked in the side:

"Please do not disturb the fairies."

The neighbours property is where it is all happening at the moment because during these Autumn days that is where the sun hits first, while our garden still lies in shadow and morning dew.

We know our neighbours.  We discuss food production over the hedge and we look after each others chickens while each of us take holidays.

They look after our fairies too.

I mourn the loss of children inhabiting our streets.

It seems few children are ever visible in our communities anymore.

If living streets are where children can play it would be fair to say that most streets in town are on death's door.

I remember a street in Gisborne (Gisborne is where we lived for 7 years previously to here). I often walked along this street in the early evening after Gunter had arrived home. It was a back street in the poorer part of town and it had few fences or cars but it always had children playing in the street. Those kids would be hanging out on the front lawn, swinging in the trees and playing tag and hide 'n' seek and I always felt safe and happy to be amongst the laughter and the life in that street.
Our street is quiet; few cars come past. We like it that way. It's safer, that's for sure: safer for skipping and biking and flower collecting and building fairy villages.

We like walking too. Walking places slows us down and makes us available to say hi to strangers whom may turn out to be friends one day, or not. 

The outcome isn't important but I do think the connection is.

In a recent blogpost, the blogger wrote about what "a painfully polarised society" we have become.
I couldn't agree more.

Empty streets mean we bump into each other less often and the more isolated from each other we become, the more further apart we feel. Polarised opinions flourish in conditions such as these, where it seems easy to magnify our differences and forget the common ground we all share.

Protecting the girls from the "real world" has never been part of our reason for keeping the girls out of school. In fact, keeping them out of school means that they can just get on with living their lives in the real world with the real people in our community.
In many ways I think that living fully in our community is actually all we need - they are such a rich source of learning.
Sure, we have protected them from excessive media exposure. As I have said before here, I'm not willing to compete with the marketing industry. I'm relieved at the lack of media hype and pushy popular culture in our world and I'm sure we would have more if they went to school. They will have plenty of time to negotiate those highways later on if they wish upon a strong foundation of play and real life living.
Instead having whole days where they can interact with real people in real contexts bring rich possibilities. Playing in our neighbourhood, walking in our streets, hanging out in public spaces and visiting places of interest means we get to interact with the diversity of people who populate our communities now. Claiming space for children and their adults offers opportunities to share laughter with others, building safer communities one connection at a time.
And so playing on the street is part of what we do on fine Autumn days.

the bees

We have bees.

This is our first season and we got them fairly late in the season.

We wanted to catch a swarm in the Spring.

When I say that it sounds like we know what we are doing. We don't.

We had read about it and watched a bit of footage. We felt that if we were to keep bees, catching a swarm was the right place to start.

We put notices through our local networks and on local noticeboards.

No calls came except the day before we were leaving on a 3 week holiday in the Summer. We had to say no.

We were about to give up on the idea but then got a call from a friend who was splitting her hive.

She was willing to share her bees.

Bless her.

Gunter built a hive (plans here) for us last Winter.

He's a good man for getting on and building it because a year ago he wasn't at all convinced that keeping bees was a good idea.

It was really showing him this DVD that changed his mind - a step-by-step, how-to DVD on keeping bees in a topbar hive and an introduction to bee guardianship.

He was encouraged by the respectful and gentle approach of the beekeepers.

We liked the concept of natural beekeeping

I too am a total newbie but bees have been on my mind for a few years now. How can they not be? Anyone who works at all with plants have noticed their rapid decline. All I needed was a bit of encouragement and so I organised a weekend workshop at the our community garden.

If you need a taster, make sure to watch this film. If you need convincing watch this film.

Our hive sits right next to the deck in a warm and fairly sheltered spot.

We see them every day.

We still don't know much but we are learning step by step.

Like the first child, the next step unfolds before you and you step into that space.

We watch the hive entrance - it has become our favoured cuppa spot.

It is the place I go when things begin to unravel just on dinner time.

Just for a moment I sit with the bees.

Their gentleness astounds.

I leave calm and quiet.

weekend viewing

"When children are defined as consumers they have no protected place in which to grow.

- Mary Pipher, "The Shelter of Each Other."

Hey, just for a bit of light viewing this weekend you could check out this documentary below; "Consuming Kids: The Commercialisation of Childhood." Oh yeah, as you can read by the title, it's a goodie.

Although this is set in the U.S and it isn't at quite the same level in little ol' NZ yet, I'm not kidding myself that those influences aren't present here in our lives now. Parents need to know what they and their children are up against.

Gunter and I do our best at choosing not to parent in competition with the multi-million dollar budgets of corporations.

Who would if they knew?

We don't do TV, we don't do malls and we don't buy branded toys. Having a limited budget, living in a small house and living slightly out of town all help with this.

For us it's a huge relief not to do battle with these images, products and messages in our home. In our attempt to carve out some safe spaces in which the children can freely play, imagine and discover for themselves, we hope they will able to cultivate their own unique ecosystem of the mind.


I know.... now you are thinking we live in a cave, with only sticks to play with in the sand and loincloths for clothes or better still, we are over-protective homeschoolers who have isolated our children from the modern world.

But in fact, there is a whole wide world out there with real people having real relationships and working with endless possibilities that are all beyond the marketers grip.

Going outside is a really good start. Moving away from screens is essential. Deciding to chat to your neighbour can bring unexpected surprises. Living with gratitude for all we have right now maintains a baseline. Remembering that more things will not give our children better lives but will in fact deprive them of freedom, imagination and creativity.

Things won't give our children better lives but loving relationships most definitely will....that's the mantra.

If you ever needed a reason to get rid of the TV, take a peek at the doco - although as one of the contributors did mention, "TV is just soooo 20th century."

Now if I could just step away from this screen, close the lid and get outside.

Happy Sunday people.

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Late addition: I'm over at the Lyttel Town blog posting about Black Beauty peaches tonight, just incase you want to try out the best jam recipe ever.

writing it down.

Why do it?

I guess it's because
if you don't write it down
tell it to your neighbour
plant it in the ground
it all just slips away

which is where
it's going anyway
but we want, at least
to feel some friction.

by Vaughan Gunson

And so I have made a return to writing. I have missed it but then again didn't miss the time inside in front of the screen nor the stream of late night writing sessions.

To make a return is somewhat of a relief.
During my years as a mama of younger children, imagining the life I wanted to cultivate for our family and consuming books on non-coercive parenting and living without school, I stumbled upon a few blogs on the internet.

I remember coming across Miranda's blog; it was like finally finding an ally as well as a mentor all rolled into one. She had older children and seemed to deeply trust them. She enjoyed the fabric of their days together and wrote about learning in a way that made sense to me. I drank deeply from her well of experience at that time.

Lori's blog was one of those early touchstones too.

In the beginning reading these blogs helped me build belief and confidence in my vision for my family and our learning journey. What their days looked like resonated more with me than anything I could see in my daily life. Without their writing I may have made a different decision and I'm so glad I didn't.

I love the place my family is right now. Our lifestyle reflects our deepest values: that our youngest citizens have the right to freedom in childhood; that deep, meaningful relationships are more important than any well-meaning curriculum statement; that healthy communities depend on these deep rich relationships; that authentic experiences grow stronger people than those experiences that are contrived and that children with a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationship with the Earth will be better prepared to face future challenges.

A lifestyle in step with your values is deeply satisfying; there is a peace that comes with such a good fit.
That is all to say that I am deeply grateful to those people who have written words that have given me the courage to remain true to my own path and now I write to add texture and depth to the larger collective human story.
To write it down is to somehow claim a little space in this collective story if not for anything other than to, in the words of Vaughan Gunson in the poem above, "create a bit of friction."
Today was a good day; it didn't rain which gave us a bit of a head start on some other days this week and it was our dear Charlotte's first birthday. The party was a hit and they all the babies had a ball although Charlotte needed a long nap in the afternoon after all the hooplah. Ruby's birthday card to Charlotte read "I love you. Thank you for the magik I have got now."

---------------------------------------------------------------

I'm posting over at lyttel-town blog again too... yep, riding the writing wave while the surf's up you might say. Local, grassroots community regeneration Lyttelton style and nice clip on cultivating gratitude originally found here.

taking time to remember.

We took time today to celebrate the life of Wangari Maathai.

After hearing about her death from a friend's comment on my last post (thanks N) it's what naturally unfolded for us today.

I continue to enjoy and appreciate how celebration and rememberance springs forth from what is current in our lives or what catches our interest.

When so often it seems like time is the most scarce resource in people's lives right now, it is such a privilege to have the time to follow what appears ahead of us.

We celebrated in some of the ways we know how: we talked and read and sang and skipped and drew and watched some footage.

We lit a candle.

We might have planted a tree but we didn't. We happened to have planted a mandarin the day she died. That was the tree for her.

As I have said here before, I love my girls being immersed in stories of women with such power and clarity so you can imagine my response when Ruby declared we would save to buy Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai.

She figures if she can't meet this woman then she wants to at least watch a movie about her.

Surprisingly I have no qualms with that!

I will do the best I can

Sitting with my coffee this morning I have been watching Sky read our current favourite book.

Mama Miti tells the important story of Wangari Maathai and the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya.

Inspiring, beautiful and simple.

I can't tell you how good it feels when the girls have such books with stories of such women in their hands.

As I watch Sky read the pictures, I remember to begin my day with an intention inspired by this beautiful story below told by Wangari Maathai.

I will do the best I can.

A perfect start to the week before me.

I have also posted over on the "lyttel town" blog today; a post inspired after spending a few hours over the weekend sowing and playing with seeds.

schooling the world:the white man's last burden

You have an institution that is in place globally that is branding millions and millions of innocent people as failures.

- Manish Jain ( see "Rethinking Education and Development" on the sidebar.)

These people aren't failed attempts at being us, they are unique answers to the fundamental question: what does it mean to be human and alive.

- Wade Davis (see TED talk with him on the sidebar)

Yesterday "Schooling the World" came in the post.

I'd been waiting for it for a while; you may have noticed the link on my partly constructed sidebar.

If you are at all interested in the moral implications of the Western education system in general and in particular the social justice of sending it into indigenous societies, then this is a film for you.
This film astutely deconstructs our Western world view and our Western education system.

At least take a look at the trailer. It's worth it.

It's the kind of film I have been waiting for.

May blessings rain down on those who were involved in making it.