Bubba Banksy - Spreading Her Wings

It's a merry thing watching your children develop their interests so passionately.

Seraphina is blossoming into quite the little artist which is no surprise to me as she is always singing and drawing something. Yesterday she ran to me and said "Mummy, come and see my street art!"

 

We have a very similar nature Seraphina and I. Both Librans, both lovers of all things beautiful and a past that runs oh so deep. If there is ever a child that triggers and stirs my very existence, it is Sera. x

Some of our similarities....

* Our emotional sensitivitity can be wild and foreboding, causing physical anxiety to varying degrees and at times, disconnection from our loved ones and each other.

* We both possess intense acuity to the ethers and the world around us, which has graciously inspired a longing to be of service and the desire to contribute much healing in the world.

* One of our most avid traits is a never ending quest to discover the truth and to actively participate in helping others to find their own truth. Even if it ruffles a few feathers ;)

So... Those who know and love us well, understand the challenges within our relationship that have presented themselves so meticulously since being reunited 8 years ago at her birth.

I am slowly piecing together our story and beginning to see and feel the blessings and lessons amidst the storms. It has taken me a while, but I finally feel like I am closer to connecting the dots on my parenting journey with Sera than I have ever been before.

 

There are many avenues for healing ourselves and this week I have remembered how powerful it can be to immerse yourself in art.

Not only is ART (which I like to imagine stands for Actively Remembering Truth) a gentle way to express and release painful experiences but it has the remarkable ability to instantly reconnect you to the infinite source of creativity that resides within each and every one of us, which is ultimately the universal love and creation of life itself!

Just like meditation, creative pursuits can lead you back to your core essence so that you may free yourself from limiting beliefs and self sabotaging behaviour. Art, in all it's forms, enables you the space to regroup and redefine the person you dream to be and to manifest the life you desire.

 

It is my endeavour to continue bringing more art and creativity into my life and here is how I hope to do this.

1. Create a sacred space within my home where I can retreat to daily to play with a creative project.

2. Spend time in quiet interlude, free from distractions, to develop my art.

3. Be more involved with my local art community and participate in classes and workshops.

4. Introduce more artistic and cultural experiences into our family life and play time together.

5. Switch off the TV and listen to music.

6. Spend more time in nature with pencils or camera.

7. Travel

8. Sleep, regenerate, dream......

9. Affirm "There IS enough time in the day!" and

10. Let go of the idea of perfection to allay procrastination. :)

 

So, to my dear Sweet Seraphina girl, thank you for once again opening my eyes to what is important in my life and for helping me to remember the things that bring me most joy. I Love You eternally xxx

 

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SPACE to SOW and GROW - "Dragon Language"

My little man is not so little any more..  In fact, he turned 11 last month.  Today I want to share his handwriting journey as it was such a fascinating time in our unschooling life.

Wade was slow to speak by conventional standards.  At age 3 he used hardly any words at all to communicate to me.  People found it very hard to understand him when he did talk, which frustrated him to no end.  I always knew what he was saying however, but in all honesty we very rarely spoke with our voices.  Most of our communication was telepathic.  It came so natural to the both of us and at some point I wondered if perhaps that was why he wasn't choosing to verbalise his thoughts. It was working for us :)

As he grew and became more and more a part of society he realised that he needed to "speak" if others were to know what he was feeling, thinking, needing...  This was challenging for Wade for a couple of reasons.  

The main reason being that it annoyed him that other people couldn't just "hear with their minds" as he put it :)

He was never all that interested in books as a little fella.  Way more into pulling real life things apart to discover how they worked and what made them tick.  Old clocks, radios etc. were his preferred toys.  

Our eldest child was really into books and reading.  Around about age 3, she showed interest in learning how to read and by the time she was in preschool she was already reading.  Reading is still something she enjoys to do.  When Wade was a similar age, maybe 4/5, I thought it was only right to offer him the same opportunity to read.. and write.  He quickly showed me he was not interested and became frustrated when I encouraged him to do so.  This was my sign to back off and try again in a couple of years... Which I never did as he was too busy doing the things he loved most, like drawing diagrams, labeling inventions with x and y's and mc squares.. well that's what it looked like to me. :)

What we did notice with Wade was that he had a photographic memory with numbers at a very early age.  In his third year he would memorise really long numbers after reading them once.  For a kid who hardly spoke this was a complete spin out to us as he would look at a bank card number or a phone number on TV etc. then recite the numbers back to us!!  Where did that ability come from??  It's still a bit of a mystery :)

Before numbers, Wade would fill notebooks with symbols.  Think hieroglyphics but more like Rune style.  I would say "What you doing there Wade?", in which he would reply, "Oh, that's Dragon Language."  Okaaay... "Cool!".  I thought it was the most awesomest thing I had ever seen!! and I was intrigued to learn more.  Dragons have always fascinated me.  His "work" inspired many great conversations between the two of us and as he spoke I clearly envisioned him cloaked up all Hermit like, in his Dragon type lair, concocting spells and wizardry and mastering the arts of alchemy!  Fantastico!!

Had Wade seen Rune symbols before??  Not in this life time :)  His scripting was coming from a very intelligent and ancient source.. Well that's my take on it anyway.  Love a bit of Past Life Wisdom!!! and possibly Future Wisdom for that matter!

He's also been totally into making "potions" since as long as I can remember, and anything to do with chemistry, electricity and physics.  Is it any wonder he wasn't interested in bedtime stories :)  I remember his favourite book around the age of 5/6 was a thick Science encyclopaedia and the page he religiously wanted to look at over and over again was the pages showing the Periodic Table!!  

You really can learn so much about a person, their past, present and future, by respectfully allowing them to pursue whatever sparks their interest at any given point in time and to notice what information naturally flows through them.

Wade played out all his past chemical and mathematical experiences as a little boy.  He's moved on to scripting online games now, which is totally over my head, but still interesting to me as I love to support my children with whatever it is they are in to.  They are after all, the Masters of their own Creation xx

SPACE to SOW and GROW - In The Beginning...

One of the main reasons I created this blog was to record my family's unschooling adventures in a meaningful and joyful way.  I am naming these posts "Space to Sow and Grow" because I understand that true learning comes from having the freedom to follow your own passions in life.  The space to sow the seeds of that which is important to you and your future and the space to grow unhindered so that you may fully reach your own personal potential. 

I attended school for 12 years and  have both positive and negative memories from the experience.  None, I must add, that have swayed my decision to unschool our family.  It was only having the children themselves, watching them grow, naturally learning every single day without coercion, bribing, or manipulation on my part, that convinced me that it was the right decision for us.

My husband and I had always considered home educating our children and at the time our eldest was due to start school I had just completed a year long course in Massage Therapy.  I was keen to venture out in the big wide world as a self employed mum and the decision to put Lani in school was where we were at at this point in our journeys.  Lani was one of those kids who did well at school.  She had already learned to read before her first day and enjoyed the social interaction with her teachers and friends.  She was especially interested in music, reading, writing and art.  Nothing has changed there :)

Now Wade was a whole different ball game...  The year Lani started year 3, Wade started Preschool.  (Back then Prep was just being introduced to the school system.)  I knew immediately that this was not where he wanted to be and so I toyed with the idea again of homeschooling.  Lani was enjoying school and with my idea of homeschooling being "school at home", albeit with a funky, relevant curriculum, I began to doubt that I would be able to pull off such a huge time consuming feat.  At this point I was in two minds about the whole thing and so began to look for alternative schools.

This year I was pregnant with Seraphina, our third child, and with each pregnancy I grow and evolve a little more.  Seraphina lead me to homebirthing and I also believe it was her pregnancy that started leading me away from conventional schooling and into Steiner education.  Lani and Wade finished their state primary school year in 2005 and the following year spent a beautiful 6 months at the nearest Steiner school.

We loved the music, the art and the community of this school but there was still something luring me back to the idea of having the kids at home with me every day so that we could live and learn together.  (I was always one of those school mums that had to be kicked out of the classroom - especially at Steiner because it was such a healing space to be in.) 

I believed that all of the aspects of Steiner and Waldorf that I so admired, I could provide for the children in our own home.  And so there began our official "homeschooling" journey.  I often questioned why I didn't just homeschool the kids without going to Steiner, but understand now that our experience at Steiner set a precedence for the nurturing and loving learning environment I was yet to establish at home.  I still love Steiner's reverence to nature and all the crafty stuff!

So now we have been out of school for almost 5 years and it didn't take long at all to recognise that an unschooling life was the way to go. Even though at different times and for different reasons I would enter a place of fear and judge myself and my kids that we weren't doing "enough".  Family and strangers all had their negativity to add.  And yet I knew in my heart that we were living an authentic life, learning all the things that were important to us at any given moment and loving and nurturing each other along the way.

Life is too short to be learning a broad range of things that are of no interest to you, when you could be learning every little detail about that which makes your heart sing!! We are all individuals with something of great beauty and importance to share with the world.

We need a loving, rich space to remember the seed we planted well before our birth.  For it holds the blueprint of the way we need to grow.  We need to take time to tune in and connect to our own source of Light, so that our paths remain illuminated in all their glory and the pureness of our authenticity may shine out and be an inspiration to others.

We need to show Love and Acceptance always. We need to Trust.
 
Nothing can grow in the shadow of someone else's fear.

<3 <3 <3