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Posts Tagged ‘nature’

Today I wanted to take the time out to articulate part of our journey, and how I use name medicine to guide us. What is in a name? We have our born day names. My name is Nichole, meaning Victorious Heart. My heart eye leads me. It’s as if the name is all the chakras unified in the heart. A name is medicine, and it is a journey towards oneself.

We have a family name medicine. The Wolf Pack. Loyal, leaders, tightly knit, respectful of each other’s roles. Enduring, patient, loving, playful. Family medicine.

Our homeschool name is Eagle Tree. I developed the name as my children began guiding me towards schooling at home, the place of liberation and free learning. I have spent time with many Elders. My own grandparents were a fixture in my young life, and as I grew, more Elders appeared. I was ready. One great teaching I learned is the teaching of time and space, the teaching of the Long Vision, and the dance that is done on the journey.

A name is medicine, and I chose Eagle Tree. My boys are eaglets perched in our family tree. Not only are my husband and I the tree, the roots, the foundation and the Tenders of the family flame, we are the eagle parents as well. We are holding space for the Long Vision. The Spirit of the turtle taught me this wisdom. Slow and steady, no rush. It’s the archetype of Grandmother. And so I found Grandmother Nichole, across time and space and she has helped Nichole the Maiden step into the shoes of Nichole the Mother. And now Grandmother Nichole has helped me step once again through the portal of the eclipses. I am in a new place, within the Long Vision. Ironically, the turtle could give me this wisdom, because turtle lives within the eagle. Eagles pick turtles up off the ground carry them high up, drop them, crack them open and eat them. So the Spirit of the turtle lives within the Spirit of the Eagle. As do we All live within the Collective Conscious. We are One. And we always and forever have the ability to understand one another.

Over time, since the birth of Eagle Tree School, I have been helping my boys learn to Trust the Long, Keen Vision. The Greater Good of our journey. The place where there is No Rushing. Only Presence. It’s messy in reality, because that is the lower energy of the 3rd dimension (we really spend more time in the 5th), where we must live out our Vision. It’s the Higher Realm which is our guide, our council, and from where we “bring down” the energy and spiritualize matter.

Because we are and are not fully in control, sometimes things align differently than we hope. But that’s because our higher self can See clearer. Like the Eagle. We are more like mice some days. Our face, nose and eyes to the ground, living among the details. Those dreadful, distracting details. We must live between the worlds when we can to find a balance. Not always so close to the ground. Not always so high up above our real lives. But right in the middle, being the divine light body we truly are, directing our higher and lower consciousness.

Endurance is what our lower selves learn, and patience. We learn to dance the journey, and persevere. Our higher selves want to taste the sensory of this world. The dirt, the sex, the food, the love, the loneliness, the blood of natural pain, time even. There is so much to understand within the realm of Love. There is a Long Vision.

What is in a name? A great deal of medicine. A wonderful story. Wisdom.

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Hi friends. We took a nice break, back when we were feeling a little burned out. Then we picked our work back up and completed 6th and 4th grade, plus drew our preschooler more and more into our rhythmic space. Everyone has really grown. My heart is full seeing my handsome boys shine before my eyes.

We are still doing a couple hours of school a few days a week. I call it Summer School Lite. The oldest, Little Eagle, goes to the wood shop three mornings a week, and practices living math, communications, and working wood, beginning with the most humble tasks. He is also doing the Geology/Mineralogy/Astronomy block. We are just getting started there, using the Charles Kovacs book, and the Waldorf Rocks and Mineral guide, by Meredith Floyd Preston.

My middle guy, Little Fox, is finishing up the Human and Animal block. He just completed the bear, a trunk animal. We decided to write a poem, instead of a summary, for this assignment. He also did a little bit of Freehand Geometry, by drawing a geometric bear with angles. I love how we create our own Main Lesson books. Little Fox finished off his poem with bear prints.

Math is always happening. I’m that mom:teacher. I love maths. Not until I began to study math the waldorf way, did I understand that math is sacred and beautiful. So we will have some daily practice in what the boys learned, in 4th and 6th, over the summer. Measurement, fractions, the four processes, Geometry, and decimals.

This week we are preparing to send one child to church camp, back in KY, and another to grandma camp, also in KY. I am staying home, in Indiana, with our 4 year old, and really giving him some special attention.

My hopes for the summer are to camp on our country property as often as possible, hit up the pool a couple times a week, and alternate going to the zoo, botanical gardens, art museum, and science center. We have cousins coming in July for a couple weeks. They have normally lived abroad, but moved back to the states at Christmas, so we will see them a little more.

I am looking forward to beginning 1st grade wet-on-wet watercolor painting, with Waldorfish. There are 12 lessons that promise to demystify the colors, set-up and verses. I have experience with wet-on-wet over the years, but I hope to deepen my study this summer, so I can prepare to teach 1st grade again, when Little Bear turns 7.

I also purchased Painting through the Festivals by Waldorfish, and I am so excited to again deepen our experience during our favorite holy days.

Years ago, back on my childhood Kentucky Farm, my relationship with the plant and animal kingdom began. In my 20’s and 30’s I deepened my knowledge of herbs, learning to formulate medicine from plants, create soaps, salves, tinctures, hair rinses and pretty much anything our family needed. As time went on, we studied the plants through art, like watercolor painting and drawing. I began our boys with nature journaling, around age 5, so we have been slow and steadily building our wisdom of plant identification. We studied animals and the human in 4th, plants in 5th, and played games, like Wildcraft. Handwork, like embroidery and needle felting nature has really created dimension within our studies.

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Since moving, I have reinvigorated my desire for learning about the plant kingdom. I have begun foraging locally, throughout the seasons, and recently have become obsessed with cut and foraged flowers. I have always put together rustic bouquets, but I may be ready now for growing my garden, and expanding my skills with creating those lovely bouquets. We’ve always had a small children’s garden, with culinary herbs and medicinal perineals, but I believe it’s time to expand and learn in my 40’s.  I have visions of a small cut garden, and dreams of dinner parties, styling out the table and eating and drinking with our new community.

What will you be up to this summer?

Slide on over to Instagram and check out my posts and Stories @nurturing_spirit

Also, if you are planning this summer, I’ve curated preschool and most of the grades over on Pinterest. Feel free to scroll around when the day is too hot, with a cold glass of lemonade at your side.

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Good day folks! Join me over on Instagram for a GIVEAWAY of this lovely piece, called Full Circle, pattern by Cozy Blue. I want to share LIGHT and KINDNESS with this GIVEAWAY, so LIKE and TAG a friend in the COMMENTS. GIVEAWAY closes, Monday, December 26th, at 4p.m. My children will choose a winner!

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Winter review, 4th and 2nd grade math.

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Big brother brought in a piece of bark, with bird tracks in the snow.  Little Bear is blessed with big brothers and nature knowledge all around.

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Winter.  Rounding out the year.  I have a moment to sit, still myself, and breathe the deepest breath of the year.  We can even loosen up a little bit.  The time I have had since Christmas has been busy, like most, but I am also taking the time to reorganize, dust, purge, and slowly open my eyes up to a new time for us next year.  But first I want to re-cap the past couple months as we finished entering our stories and teachings into our Main Lesson Books for Fourth and Second.

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We did a lot of nature scavenging, and I had dirty floors constantly.  Such is life, and the season in which I am in.

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Here’s our collection of nature to send to our Nature Pal in California.  We dipped some nature in beeswax, painted a wood apple, made beeswax tea lights, and sent a little mouse finger puppet along.  We also had a bird seed gift wrapped as a pumpkin to give too.

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The light of day began to dim, and so we made our lanterns and walked with friends.

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Music filled our ears, as Little Fox, Second Grade, practiced and accomplished his semester recital.

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We warmed our hands with handwork.  Little Eagle, 4th grade, sewed mama a little needle book. This was a craft from September Happy Hedgehog.  I try to pace our handwork, so it stays enjoyable.

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Little Fox begged to make outfits for our Lantern Carriers.

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There was nothing more enjoyable than getting out into the woods with my family for a weekend. We visited Natural Bridge State Park and Red River Gorge, Geological Area.  My buzzword for the year was Connect, and there is no better place than nature.

We are currently alternating rest with work.  I have begun to tackle that urge to clear and clean, organize, and dream.  We are having an unusual late fall and early winter, with lots of rain and warm days.  I can’t help but appreciate how mild the season has been, which can be a help to us this year.  No snow yet.

Here comes 2016!!

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Maybe it is the moon outside of my bedroom window that’s keeping me awake. Maybe I had too much coffee earlier.  Maybe God had a message for me and needed me half asleep, half awake. Maybe I was inspired by reading links and posts scrolling endlessly on Facebook (it happens!)  But as I laid in bed tonight I felt a change come over me.

I could See myself Broken.  Darkness.  Wounded.  In many ways, over time I have received wounds from various experiences that left me sore, hurt, angry, resentful, sad, stronger, frightened, cynical, doubtful…God was working on me in these times.

I recently took a Facebook break, from May till now.  I felt Creator talking to me. Oneness was asking me to Listen.  Deep listen.  Part of that listening was Shifting. Purification.  Disconnecting – Reconnecting. Emptying. Emptying so much to the point of confusion.  Recently when I came out of my deep listening period I couldn’t figure out what I had gone through, or what I had learned. What had I been doing?  What was I listening for?  I mean surely after months of listening I had to have something profound to say or feel!  Nothing.  I couldn’t say.  I wasn’t sure, at all, because I am not really in control.  I am to a degree in control of my choices, but if I am open enough and vulnerable enough I knew that Creator was really in charge.

Then it happened.  I could See. The light of this very moon illuminated all of me. I was broken.  An empty vessel.  I laid there breathing deeply.  In the vision my body turned over and my arms were stretched wide, and my chest was So Open. My heart was So visible.  All the holes and cracks in my brokeness were there to be seen.  I have prayed to God in the past week or two more in Awareness than I ever have over the entire summer.  I begged God for help.  God was working on me in the deepest of ways.  Slowly Oneness opened itself up to me.  A beautiful gold liquid poured forth from above and began to fill me up.  All the cracks were filled with an essence so rich, so pure.  All the dark places in my life were illuminated so brightly that I could See my Wholeness!  God lives in me.  And God fills me up when I am empty, but then if I am vulnerable enough that essence pours out of me into the lives of those around me.  It is part of my Gifts.  My brokeness and the parts of me that are tender and gold.  I am repaired.  I am forgiven, and I forgive and that is my greatest gift to myself and others.

Can I honor myself.  Can I be vulnerable.  Can I be broken and whole at the same time.  Can I live this life with my chest wide open knowing that life breaks me, that love breaks me and fills me up.  The Oneness knows my strength better than me.  As I fell in love with my husband and as we added each child to our nest God knew.  God knew that love would tear me open and fill me up even more.

I have memories of my childhood.  I have children now.  So much time has passed and so much more will pass before I leave this earth.  I was given the Vision by a healer once that I lived to old age and I was surrounded and loved by many.  My children and grandchildren.  My husband.  Love had torn me open. Brokeness had torn me open.  But I was always filled back up by that pure liquid gold.  That essence that I cannot truly name.  The nameless.

This life is good.  It has been hard and riddled with confusion and doubts, lonliness…heartache so huge.  Loss.  I have had great teachers come my way in many forms.  Nature.  Elders.  Friends. My husband. Our children.  Oh, so so so much our children.  I am surrounded by teachers.  If I take deep breaths I am teachable most days.

You can take my word for it that right now our Maker, whatever form, has something to teach us.  I feel that in the next few days as the Super Moon approaches, it will light up parts of us that have been so dark for so long.  We can choose to look and embrace.  We can choose to see what diamonds have been made by that tightly held fist in the darkness.  The brightness is sometimes so painful that we turn our heads away, but I beg you to look and hold your gaze.

Be open, despite the brokeness, because we may just get filled up and See the Wholeness. The Integration.  I feel so whole right now in this moment, more so than anytime since I was born, a wee babe.  All along I was Whole though, I just couldn’t see it.  I looked for my wholeness in the reflection of other people’s faces and glances.  Mirrors.  My husband has known his Wholeness all along, despite his struggles throughout life.  I know it is why I love him So much.  I have always wished to balance myself and to be as humble as him.  But my game with myself and the world was protection.  Walls.  I went from a little girl to a straight Warrior.  One Who Stands In Her Power, but with walls.  So my life hasn’t always been open, full circle, reciprocal.  Maybe in some cases speaking my truth has been warranted.  Well, I am sure it has.  But it is okay to just Be too, because I am already Whole. I am already and always filled with gold, in all the cracks and brokeness.

No matter what Vision I have for myself, Oneness knows what I most need.  My Ego is actually my ally.  It guides me, as a Contrary.  As a human on this dense plane, earth, we actually need our Egos. Not the Ego of Ego=tistical-ness.  But the I.  I Am.  Being-ness.  Broken down I am nothing and everything.  I am alive and I am dying.  Cyclically.

Right now we are approaching Harvest.  Spiritually it is just as significant as the harvest of my garden.  I planned and dreamed last winter like any farmer would, farmer of the heart, like Rumi says.  In Spring I was planting seeds.  This summer I tended and deep listened. August has been such a time of preparation too. Preparing for harvest.  It is near. And some of us are already seeing the harvest come in.  I see pictures on Facebook of baskets filled up.  I am not even fully sure what all this means, my harvest.  I haven’t held the bounty in my hands long enough.  I haven’t had time to wash things off and taste it.  I’ll try to keep my door open to share with you though.  I’ll try.  It’s part of my promise to Trust, in my brokeness and in my healing and in my Wholeness.

Aho.

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And so here you are led.  Serendipity.  If you are reading this I have a message for you.  The message was for myself as well, and so I share it with you.

 

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

 

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Welcome to my home!  Grab your cup of tea or coffee and sit with me a moment.  I want to share with you our recent adventures!  When I am done I want to hear how you are as well.  Without connection to others, sharing and storytelling, what would life be like?

In case you couldn’t remember I am currently teaching Waldorf Inspired First and Third Grade, along with our little nursling.  In Third Grade not only are we learning all about the Old Testament and Jewish Festivals, but we are also studying Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Farmer Boy is about a little boy named Almanzo when he was nine years old and is beautifully paired with the nine year change our oldest child is moving through.  If you want more developmental information about the nine year change, please visit my friend Carrie over at The Parenting Passageway.  I hope to speak on developmental change from my perspective in the future on Nurturing Spirit.

With much gratitude, family affectionately known as The Gramps treated us to Conner Prairie, just outside of Indianapolis, Indiana.  An interactive history park, set in 1836 and 1865.  So off we went to learn and experience together.  Upon entering the welcome center a college student from Wisconsin approached us and asked if my oldest son and I would wear a microphone as we moved around the exhibit Create.Connect.  She asked us some questions afterwards about the exhibit she helped to create, in exchange for an ice cream coupon.  Click on the link above to learn more about the exhibit.  It’s worth some of your time I promise.  However, the day was getting hotter by the minute, so we were a tad anxious to get on outside.

We headed on over to the Civil War area first, because it was the farthest walk. We entered into the Civil War area across a covered bridge, with Civil War banners and bayonet slices through Abraham Lincoln banners.  I believe this park is top notch.  Clean and accurate.  The actors really take their jobs seriously. Parents with little bitty kids take note.  Some of the interactive aspects in this area are loud, with yelling, horses neighing, pots and pans hitting the ground and video.  If you have children with sensory issues, please check it out first, or avoid altogether.  One little girl was crying because she was scared, and to her it was a very real.  The park is great for older children who can understand.  We did not take our little babe into those exhibits.  The park is quality and worth admission, and theses actors and scenarios gave us a lot to ponder over.  Upon returning home we are going to take a tangent into the life of a freed slave girl to try and understand the many aspects of this era, while reading this book by the Dear America series.

We looked ahead and decided we wanted to attend the funeral re-enactment, so off we went to Prairietown, after a delicious picnic lunch prepared by The Gramps.  There was a funeral procession to the grave site dug that morning by the town folk.  The coffin was made by the woodworker at the park, and will be buried permanently.  We sang Amazing Grace and the Preacher read the bible verse we all know from Proverbs 31.  We weren’t afraid to allow our children to see this aspect of the parks interactive history, because death is a part of the circle of life.  Death is hard.  I know because I am selfish and it is hard for me to release those I love most back to the spirit world, when it’s their time to go.  But that is for me to learn to cope and teach my littles and this process has helped Awaken me to this life and my soul purpose.

Prairetown is my favorite and I really enjoyed each and every single building and the people.  I had great conversations about the cooking, the animals ( oh my gosh, the piglets were so cute!), the work – like carding and spinning, which you can DO yourself right there!  The Blacksmith was spectacular and made a nail right before our eyes.  The Store.  The Inn.  Don’t let me forget to mention your child can play a part in the town!  Spin the wheel or choose yourself a part.  Town Healer, Deputy, Merchant and so on.

We have been reading Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and when I saw the two baby oxen in their yokes at Conner Prairie I immediately went to the picture in my mind of the book.  Almanzo has two of his own oxen to train from babies, so the park was really bringing the book to life for us.

Well, I should leave the rest of the park for you and your family.  We really hope to return, as we did spend 10 am to 5 pm, enjoying everything we could.  If you want to see a plethora of pictures, visit me @healingoneself on Instagram, where I share our daily homeschool life in pictures.  And let me say homeschooling has given me the opportunity to really bring Language Arts and Math to life.  I feel Blessed and I want the universe to know I am grateful.

Learning about the Old Testament, Norse Mytholgy, Buddhism and other cultures and religions helps us to build our tolerance of others, and better understand God.  It is antiquity, and I know it will shape and temper us into whole beings.  I appreciate having more opportunities to learn along side our children, because as it turns out they are teaching me.  And it is easy to see how “worth” taking the boys places like this are by the days-on-end of play and reenactment outside I have been watching.  Thank you for visiting with us.

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Let’s play a game like the Ancestors.  Obwisana is a children’s game out of Ghana, which encourages cooperation, movement, oral dexterity and even accuracy.  Cooperators use stones and move them from hand to hand, getting faster and faster.

Let’s take [it] a little farther.  We can be farmer’s of the heart as Rumi says, and remove the stones from our hearts field.  I will help you.  Go with me to the field, it’s a short walk.  I have water.  Close your eyes, and  sing with me.  See your heart.  See the field.  Walk the rows you have tilled over time.  Feel the dirt on your feet.  Sense it.  Look for the stones.  Pick up the stone and speak to it,

“I am going to move you, like the wind moves me.”

“I am going to mine you from my heart, and I will make an altar of you.”

Let’s transform this field into a lush garden, and it will bear seeds for a new generation.

 

altar of your heart

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