Brave Zephyr

24 June 2012
Last week we went to Oxforshire and were playing in a playground. There were some older boys playing on the equipment, about 5 or 6 years old. They had obviously come together from school and were involved in a game together. As Zeph approached the equipment they shouted that he wasn't allowed to climb up. He ran back to me and asked whyand I responded that the playground is for all children to play in. He marched right back to them and said
"That's not true! That's not fair! I AM allowed!"
He began to climb up again and the ringleader protested that he had to be wearing school uniform tobe allowed. Zeph came back to me looking sad. Then suddenly an idea came accross his face. He ran to grab his much prized strawberries, he had just picked and ran off with fistfuls of them.
"Would you like a strawberry? Here you go.I'd like to make friends and play"
This touched me so deeply. He was able to resond to their meaness with his beautiful generosity of spirit. The boys continued to gang up against him, saying they'd already had strawberries, but I told Zephyr why I felt so proud of the way he had handled the sitiuation.

Hi Mum,
I was thitnking about the difficulty you have with the way we are parenting and I thought of an analogy that might help. I think the reason I find your opinions exhausting to listen to is not because i'm not interested in what you have to say, it's more like as if i'm trying to learn chinese and you are commenting on my ability to speak chinese, based on your extensive knowledge of french. Whatever you say, however useful it would be IF I was trying to learn french, is just totally irrelevant to someone learning chinese. So it's a waste of both of our energy, which feels a shame.
I would however be so thrilled to have your input, in fact it would be a totally helpful, supportive force in my life, IF you could learn to speak chinese! So I guess what i'm saying is i'd love you to have opinions about how your grandchildren are raised, but only if you really understand what we are doing. I'm not interested in whether you think french or chinese is better, but very interested in any input you may have that supports my learning of chinese.
If you are interested I have several books I can lend you. And if you are not so interested that is absolutely fine too - you don't need to be. But I don't need any help with french. I already speak french more fluently than I want and am more interested in unlearning it so that I might learn chinese, so to speak.
Love you
x

Rarite's Birthday

Zephyr went into a frenzy this morning. He does this when he gets inspired by something, much like his father and I do when an idea gets hold of us! Having been my birthday yesterday, he decided he was doing Rarite's (his soft rabbit) birthday.
He carefully wrapped a pair of pants and a nappy for his present and then went about making raw cupcakes with dried fruit and nuts, using the mill attachment of our hand blender. He was so involved in what he was doing that you could not make conversation with him all morning. He carefully presented a plate of beautifully decorated cup cakes and then meticulously ironed out a pile of rabbit printed napkins one by one, which had got crumpled. This was a rather involved process that required linning them up and folding into a book, standing on each one to press it out. The concentration was immense. The attention to detail was profound.
This is what I love about unschooling. Zephyr is able to follow his heart's desire whenever the inspiration hits him and because we are unbound by anyone else's agenda or timeframe, he can follow the flow of his creativity. It is beautiful to watch.
I took great care to stay out of his way and avoid praising him, even though I was brimming with enthusiasm for his project. I said "I saw how much attention you paid to making those cakes" and he responded "I filled them with love"!

Dear Artemis,

My beautiful girl. I wanted to record my experience of your Welcoming Ceremony so that you can read about it when you are grown.

 

 We decided to hold your special day on the day you turned 9 months old; the 19th of June 2012; two days before the summer solstice.It felt significant that you had spent 9 months in utero and 9 months in the "womb of spirit", protected lovingly in our arms, worn on our bodies, cradled in my bed.

A wonderful woman called Jenny Mackewn (whoose name I hope you know well by the time you read this) gifted us her glorious garden and tumbled of the train from London, where she had been working all day, to lead the ceremony. You had fallen asleep on my back as we shared food with our friends and the children ran about and climbed trees and I was worried you might miss your ceremony, but you woke up in perfect time and relished all the attention being on you. 

We called in the directions.We burnt frankincense. We assingned "Alloparents" to support the intense work of attachment parenting and be there for you throughout your life in whichever ways they feel to. Your brother read his story about a baby who grows up and learns to roll, sit, stand, walk and dance in her big brother's arms.

The words we used to bless you were:

We gather today to bless a child,
As she emerges from her 'womb of spirit' to be welcomed into her community.
We gather today to name this child.
To call a thing by name is to give it power,
And so today we shall receive this child.
We will welcome her into our hearts and lives
and bless her with a name of her own.
(anoint Arte)
You are known to the gods and to us as Artemis Bee Norriss.
Sister to Zephyr,

Daughter to Roma and Jamie,

Granddaughter t o Tania, Michael, Christine and Tony,

Great Granddaughter to Molly, Elmore, Margaret, Ivan, Joan, George, Pru and George.

This is your name, and it is powerful.
We trust you will bear your name with honour, and may the Divine bless you on this and every day.
Everyone is so glad you are here. You belong with us. 

We then knelt side by side and arched to form a birth tunnel. Your daddy brought you through it and I welcomed you, whilst our friend Robin, played a heart beat on his drum. Each of us took it in turn to crawl through the brith canal and be welcomed by Raminder, who was saying "Welcome. We're so glad you are here. You are so precious to us". I found the experience of crawling through the tunnel very fetal and somehow primal. It was so moving to see each "baby" move through and be welcomed. 

 Candy, a wonderful singing mistress, taught us to sing you a song in harmonies. Some of the words were:

We wish you Joy

We wish you Health

We wish you Love

We wish you Peace