Creating beauty inspires cleaning house

A couple of days ago, I got an overwhelming urge to make window stars. These are popular in the Waldorf school movement. They are made from kite paper from Europe. My mother--my crafty but oh so busy mother--had the paper and a book on how to make them and I asked her if I could use them. So for the last three days gorgeous window stars have been blooming. Today we started putting them up on the windows.

The window stars have inspired Jasmine to clean. Yesterday she rescued her dollhouse from the back room and cleaned it and today helped me with deep cleaning the dining room to honor the beauty of our window stars.

Several nights ago, I checked up on all the homeschooling blogs I have links to. A post about cleaning and chores on The Sparkling Martins has been at the edge of my mind ever since. Dana writes that her children help with housecleaning without any coersion because she's always cleaned with joy. I have aspired to this but it has not happened. Actually Jasmine does joyfully help with chores fairly often BUT...this girl knows how to create a mess and definately has a different standard of cleanliness than I. We live in a fairly small house with my cluttery mother and I am sensitive the clutter so....I want Jasmine to keep her things neat.

We've tried to come to solutions that are mutually acceptable mostly to no avail. Eventually, a few weeks ago, I moved all of her stuff out of living area into the back bedroom and have allowed her to keep it how she wants as long as there is a pathway to my clothes.

Back bedroom-photo 1

Back bedroom-photo 2

The cool weather is finally here. Yeah. Time to get out and play. I'm feeling so vibrant and alive like the electrons in my cells are spinning faster. I am so so grateful for this living food lifestyle. I don't even want to eat cooked food.

The soundtrack for last couple days--Jasmine choose The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and I listened to a couple Bill Frisell albums Blues Dream and Ghost Town, Putumayo's South Pacific Islands, Putumayo's Brazileiro, and a Mercedes Sosa album.

This evening, Jazz handed me A Course in Miracles and said "Read this" I opened to...

"I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.

Yet in this learning is salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself."

and....

"You see the flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite. There is no choice in vision but this one. What you decide in this determines all you see and think is real and hold as true. On this one choice does all your world depend, for here have you established what you are, as flesh or spirit in your own belief. If you choose flesh, you never will escape the body as your own reality, for you have chosen that you want it so. But choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes and bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal and comfort and to bless."

I am filled with waves of gratitude that I have been led on this path and my little angel who helps remind me.

I'm back

Jazz's swim meet went well--she came within a second of winning the IM-- and we came back from Tucson with a case of young Thai coconuts (I've really been craving them) and lots of collaging stuff.





The electricity went out last Sunday afternoon and didn't come on again until Tuesday morning. As the lows were about 90 and the highs close to 110 it was an experience. We hosed off the porch on Monday morning as it needed cleaning after chickens and some construction work on the street in front of house. We then turned on the mister and sat and enjoyed playing UNO until the mail lady came by and told us it could be up to 7 days before the power came back on. Apparently there was a huge storm north of Gila Bend and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 power poles were snapped in two. Wow! Well we moved into emergency preparedness zone and picked up some of the free dry ice they were handing out for the refridgerator and freezer, ate up our ice cream, and went to check on a house-bound neighbor. What a hot adventure! The power came on the next morning thanks to the hard work of the APS crew and I have been appreciating air conditioning like never before.

An Egyptian princess surviving the heat with misters

(I've been reading The Royal Diaries: Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile-57 B.C. to her)

Since then my computer time has been spent binging on a couple of e-mail lists. I'm a member of the radicalunschoolingwithLOA and have been for a while but I haven't checked in on them for many months. I love this group and through my perusing this week I found another group that is a breakoff group from the RU/LOA called Unschoolingmiracles. How simply beautiful. I am so greatful for finding this group. More than once I have done a search for "unschooling, A Course in Miracles" and never really found anything and now a whole group of wonderful people I completely admire. Thank you universe.

It is especially very timely because this week I have been really putting time into letting go of limiting thoughts and beliefs. This has been a topic on the list and I feel less alone in this adventure and learned of a new process that really spoke to me--The Presence Process by Michael Brown. I just ordered his book from the library and also 2 others inspired by the list Arnold Patent's You can have it all and Joe Vitale's Zero Limits, which I was able to get on CD. Here's to listening while I create a Space of Love within my home.

Here's a few neat things that came my way this week:

A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart A mathematician laments the way Math is taught in schools. Really good read. Well at least the first page that I read and I do want to finish it sometime soon.

This is a very well done short documentary on the history of schooling in our country.



And another fun movie, this is some absolutely beautiful sand art.



Yesterday was Learn Nothing Day, a holiday to show how hard it is to actually not learn anything. For an amazing post on Learn Nothing Day, go here.

Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;

None but ourselves can free our minds.

---Bob Marley in Redemption Song

A day of cleaning and finishing The Wizard of Earthsea, making tepary bean soup and salad for a local food potluck. And buying art supplies. And finishing watching Moses. And another fabulous workout. I've decided to train for a 5K. YES! But tomorrow......yes.....it's marbled paper making (with shaving cream)......and more ATCs.......maybe a chocolate zucchini cake and lots of melon, tomatoes, cucumbers. It's all good. And look, my mental slavery the need to be "productive". Was all this done in perfect joy? No.

Some new art paper for our ATCs

Yesterday as we watched the first part of Moses, I was thinking that the Hebrews needed all the plagues etc at least as much as the Pharaoh in order to let themselves go free. And that Moses could lead them because he was not raised as slave. It's part of bigger thought process I've been playing with for a couple of months. How the whole school thing is geared for going to college and getting a good job. I believe this in the mentality of a slave. And maybe our children who are not raised as slaves will lead the rest to freedom.

This unschooling journey is unwrapping layers of that slave mentality from my mind. It reminds me of a ACIM lesson I love and use alot.

The Truth will correct all errors in my mind.


I have been slacking on doing A Course in Miracles. I'm too busy being "productive" that I skip the most important stuff but.....I went on strike last week and I'm still catching up. Look at that mind go--need to be "productive". And Truth will correct all errors in my mind.

Oh my word, I just decided to link to this lesson (the whole course in miracles in on the WEB in many places) and I found this site Pathways of Light: Training for a new kind of Spiritual Ministry. I instantly knew this is me. I've wanted to be a spiritual counselor for a while but I'm not involved with any organized religions. I almost took a two year interfaith spiritual direction course in Tucson, but for some reason did not. But this-- it's my dream--spiritual counseling a la ACIM....well a piece of it. I'll spend time checking out the site more and.......

A Glorious Quiet Sunday

I enjoyed a quiet day with Jazz today. This morning I planted a couple of 6 packs of Ganzia and Salvia that I picked up in Tucson and some more melons, black-eyed peas, and Clover (as a cover crop). Nina came over to see my garden and I went to see hers at the newly started Ajo Community Garden.

This evening I'm enjoying this process of natural learning so much. Jasmine did a lot of imaginative play today. She's been so busy with summer camp and swim team she treasures the quiet times at home. At one point this evening she was singing an entire story she made up. It opened my heart. I love homeschooling/unschooling/natural learning!!! We've been having many of these moments lately where my heart opens at the extent of her learning and growing and the passion she brings to it.

After she went to bed, I watched You Tube videos on A Course in Miracles while I cut up another batch of sweet potatoes with the Mandoline. Here's one that just caught me:



Amen

An Inner Tidal Wave Happening

This morning I woke up with the same cold Jazz had earlier this week. I just went out to the garden to water and pollinate. Here's a few photos of some more unusual crops.

Tohono O'odham black eyed peas from Native Seed/SEARCH described as being a good green bean for the low desert. I wanted to wait and see how they tasted before planting more. They are delicious and you can see from the picture that they conveniently hold their beans up high so they are easy to see and pick.


Lemongrass--It's a little frost tender but last fall I planted next to the house and it easily made it through our winter.


Ginger--I'm getting ready to plant this near the house also as it is frost tender also.



Bay tree--this does well in our area if planted in a pot where it can be sheltered from the sun and frost.

Jazzie spent more time in her chicken blind, playing the piano, watching Families of the World, and of course imaginative play. She hasn't been playing the piano regularly, so I'm enjoying her passion to learn a new song. Here she is playing the harmonica as she cleans up her things.

I wasn't feeling good and mostly read A Course in Miracles, meditated, blogged or napped.

If I were to claim a spiritual path, I would call myself a student A Course in Miracles. I've received a lot of comfort from others too; Byron Katie, the Abraham material, Louise Hay etc

I've been reading ACIM (A Course in Miracles) for about 3 1/2 years. I have read it sporadically, sometimes reading a lot, sometimes not at all and I just open to a page and read. This has worked for me but I am ready now to start at the beginning and read all the way through. ACIM also includes daily workbook lessons for an entire year. I started the workbook when I started reading the Course in 2005, but only finished to lesson 100 or thereabout. I've been using these lessons ever since but it is time to begin again. Today I finished Lesson 5. Interestingly, the call to start ACIM fell about the time I've been inspired to go at least 80% raw. Somehow around this same time a ran into a fabulous set of videos on You Tube that helps it all fall into place--IT is all perfect.

A breakfast for Champions

This is the first two parts out of five of the excellent The Social and Emotional Aspects of Eating by Rozalind Gruben. If you've enjoyed them, make sure you watch the other 3 on You Tube.