Make a difference

While cleaning out 40 years worth of our families attic a few treasures were found.

This box of magnets given to me by a dear friend is one.

He was a fellow camper and then a fellow camp counselor with me when we were 18 years old.

He took the time to send a package of magnets that would have been waste and to write a beautiful letter telling me that I make a difference.

I know I read this letter 18 years ago and I was touched.  I was probably moving from one college to another and put it in the attic to use them when I had an idea.

Many things happen for a reason.  Timing amazes me.

Now, 18 years later, I needed to hear these words again.  I need to be inspired by my younger self and the friends I've made.

I've been thinking lately of the irony of this 36 year old (me) waiting tables with 21 years olds.  And it is for the same reason that this letter was rediscovered.  To remember the passion, conviction, and determination, of the age.  And to reclaim some of that.

So I chose to create.  I spent a lovely evening winding down after work with art supplies and Christmas Ale. And I now have lovely inspirational quotes for gifts.

In this time of Thanksgiving I am so Thankful to have the ability to reflect, to love, and with my own hands to create.

Music to my Ears

Sometimes I think I am intended to distill some of the *dogma surrounding Waldorf education. It is something I constantly do in my heart and mind. It makes my heart hurt when one aspect of the philosophy sends people on a different path. Yet, I find myself surging through these struggles often.

Music was something I took out of my life temporarily for the sake of my babies senses. We talk a great deal in Waldorf education about the world of tone. One of my research papers in my undergrad study was based on tone, the devachian tone, and the Essence of the music we experience as we sleep and while awake. 

I can truly say that I grew up believing I did not have a musical ear.  I was in the band in middle school but somehow as a young adult forgot to read music and lost the desire to sing my own tune. Then when I became a Waldorf teacher I taught myself to play the recorder and learned each song on it in order to sing to my class. My mentors were all musical and somehow I realized I could sing.  When I was completing my Waldorf teacher training I realized the afternoon singing and madrigals were some of my favorite times.  Right now I can think of our group held together in a beautiful room filled with our voices and it brings me great joy.

Somewhere in this discovery and joy I also took on a bit of the dogma.  Those ideas that somehow sneak in and we live with them without questioning.  So in the guide of protecting my babies senses I did not play other music.  Of course I would sing. Lullabies, nursery rhymes, little tunes I made up... But I did not play music for me, and rarely had the chance to sing with others.

On a particularly difficult 2 hour drive with two littles I turned on ENYA. Everyone was quiet, joyful, peaceful. They loved the ethereal music filling the car.

There was a little whisper in my unconscious: joy. Joy by music alone.

Weeks passed maybe months...

I was given a Bluetooth speaker which amplifies Pandora beautifully.

And all of a sudden impromptu dance parties evolved in our kitchen. Dinner preparation and clean up became more joyful. A transitional mood changer was reborn in our lives.

Such joy that could have gone undiscovered.

To be honest: I've always loved femle folk. The culmination of lyrics of love and deep womanly tone brings joy to my heart.

And when Mama is Happy : 

Everyone is Happy.

*From Wiki:

Dogma is a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.^[1] It serves as part of the primary basis of an ideology or belief system, and it cannot be changed or discarded without affecting the very system's paradigm, or the ideology itself. The term can refer to acceptable opinions of philosophers or philosophical schools, public decrees, religion, or issued decisions of political authorities.^[2]

And sometimes the boys take apart the couch while I listen to music in the kitchen!

Wide open spaces

Wide open spaces are so important.

When we are having a rough day we sometimes "escape" to an outdoor space.

It is amazing to me how our moods are lightened by the air, beauty, and sky that surround us.

I was just talking to a friend the other day about how much we are outside. I feel off schedule if we have less than 2 hours outside a day. Usually it is spent playing freely, building, caring for our animals or exploring.  At the very least (in really cold weather) we go out for a half an hour in the morning and again in afternoon.  But often we find a place that we love and spend an hour or more exploring it.

Our favorite open spaces in order of pictures:

Downtown Kent along the river

The Akron Zoo

Chase park in Kent

The Tree park in Hudson

Our Back yard

Beckwith Orchard

The fox den (the woods a short walk from our house)

The Green at 1st and Main in Hudson

Our neighborhood