SPACE to SOW and GROW - Compassion

I read Seraphina the story of The Little Match Girl today, written by Hans Christian Anderson.   If you are familiar with his original stories you will know that they are deep and thought provoking and often sad and heartbreaking.

Something I used to do with the older kids was read them a passage or chapter of a story and then have them draw a picture afterwards. It might be of a favourite character or scene, whatever connected with them at the time. I loved seeing what they would come up with and how although they both heard the same story, they would each create a different picture and in their own unique way.

I could see that Seraphina was really feeling the tragedy of the story and kept asking a lot of questions.   Like, why was the little match girl so poor? and Why would her father beat her if she couldn't sell any matches? This was a great opportunity for us to discuss these issues and to feel gratitude for our fortunate lives. We talked about homeless people and how they would feel when the cold winter rolls in.

Seraphina chose to draw the Christmas tree that the little match girl saw in the story and then drew the girl smiling. Unfortunately, without thinking, I said, "She wasn't very happy in the story was she" and Sera said "No" and rubbed out her mouth and drew a sad face.

I regret to have interfered with her creative expression. It was more me thinking out loud but Sera quickly took that as me telling her that her picture was wrong.  Such a shame on my part but another lessoned learned. I will not say a word next time.

Seraphina explained to me that she drew the happy face because she hoped that the little girl would feel the happiness that SHE feels at Christmas time. What a sweet gesture xx

The story of The Little Match Girl inspired us to make some precious candle holders. This Autumn we have been having fun making beeswax candles to connect with the shorter days and longer nights of the season.

I found a sweet tutorial on felt tealight candle holders in Amber Schmida Green's new book "Parenting Fun Everyday". Amber's book is full of useful information on keeping a natural rhythm flowing in the home while parenting small children. I've only read a handful of chapters so far but can highly recommend her work.

Here are the candle holders we made..

While we were sewing we made up a little song to honour the Little Match Girl. We felt her sadness and her pain and it was our way of sending a prayer out to all of the less fortunate people in the world. 

Sera would like to do some knitting so perhaps we could work together on a project to donate to charity and homeless people. Do you know of any such charities?

Here's our song..

"Little Match Girl we light a candle for you, Little Match Girl we light a candle for you, To warm your fingers, your hands, your toes and feet, Little Match Girl we pray your life will be sweet."

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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