Celebrating Our Strengths

Today, as we left for a potluck celebrating our homeschool group resuming meeting for the year, we heard a harsh rasping cry right out the back door. Jasmine took pictures of our visitor--a ring-tailed cat. These members of the raccoon family are native to the southwest, but not to the low desert. They are found in the mountains. Since the nearest mountain high enough to get into the pinon-juniper eco-system is 70 miles away, we have no idea how this one got to our yard. My mom's hypothesis is that it came in a construction worker's truck (they are tearing up the street in front of our house-AGAIN)

Jasmine hid my camera so she could be the photographer of our homeschool group's celebration. And she specifically asked if I would give her photos credit on the blog. So here goes--Jasmine's perspective of the homeschool group's initial meeting of the school year.

Although I have a vastly different homeschooling philosophy than the other moms in the group, I enjoy them immensely. Today the conversation turned to a Christian conference that several women had attended. One of the talks that really impressed them was about women learning to look at their own and others strengths rather than their flaws. This is a key component to unschooling and I believe it is extremely important, but I forget it daily. Thank you for reminding me to look at my and others strengths instead of our flaws.

In celebration, I am going to write about our strengths. I see deeply into the nature of things and when I find a truth I want to follow it (ex education, sustainable living). I am willing to make changes in my life. I am sensitive to energy and know alot about a person when I first meet them. I feel music deeply in my soul. I am intelligent and love researching my passions (ex astrology, permaculture, living foods). I am a visionary; I can imagine the world differently than it is. I am conscientious and aspire to parent the best I know at the moment. I am drawn to mystical spirituality. And I do want the best for all humanity.

Jasmine is passionate, a consummate dancer, creative, strong-willed, caring, intelligent, thinks deeply about the process of life, love, and how and why people behave as they do. She is confident, alive, adventurous, and enjoys meeting and learning about all different kinds of people.

Jasmine is still deeply into Shakespeare--she watched Taming of the Shrew twice today-- and the book I am reading to her, Suzanne Fisher Stapes's Haveli. This YA novel follows the life of Shabanu, a daughter of a nomadic tribe living in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan, who is given in marriage to a rich landowner as his fourth wife. She is deeply loved by her husband but persecuted by the rest of the household. Shabanu holds to her own center even through the harrowing experience's she faces. Jasmine declares this is her new favorite book. Shiva's Fire by the same author had been her favorite since I read it to her a year ago.