Om Gnomes

Five little gnomes went out one day...

... over the hills and far away.

Mother Gnome said, "Om, Om, Om, Om."

But only four little gnomes came home.

 Four little gnomes went out one day,

Over the hills and far away.

Mother Gnome said,

"Om, Om, Om, Om."

But only three little gnomes cam home.

 

Three little gnomes went out one day,

Over the hills and far away.

Mother Gnome said,

"Om, Om, Om, Om."

But only two little gnomes came home.

Two little gnomes went out one day,

 Over the hills and far away.

Mother Gnome said,

"Om, Om, Om, Om."

But only one little gnome came home.

One little gnome went out one day,

Over the hills and far away.

Mother Gnome said,

"Om, Om, Om, Om."

But no little gnomes came home.

Mother Gnome went out one day, over the hills and far away.  

Mother Gnome said, "Om, Om, Om, Om...."

... and all of Mother Gnome's gnomes came home!

Gnomes by LittleRedWhimsy on Etsy

... a little shop for little people with big imaginations!

Om Gnome & Fairy Garden Workshop

The Om Gnome and Fairy Garden Workshop has been busy during our spring break.  We were quite inspired by The Magic Onions amazing tutorials for making fairy furniture and toadstools... 

and got out into the garden this week to make a few additions.

We collect stones and had a bunch of nice round ones to work with.  We started with traditional red and white toadstools, then chose bright colors and, with just a little imagination, created some pretty psychedelic mushrooms.

Our fairy garden is beginning to look like a fairy wonderland...   

The new additions are so bright and cheerful...

Our kitty seems to be aware of magic in the garden...

Bright purple flowers are blooming on the Wild Lilac... 

And there is always time to just sit and enjoy breathing together...

Healing Garden, Sacred Space

I'm working to create a healing garden... a little sacred space... a quiet area for peace and introspection... a place for sitting and breathing and imagining.  We've planted both medicinal and culinary herbs and started a fairy garden full of butterfly attracting blooms.  Today I bundled bushels of lavender and hung it all around the patio.

I'm a big fan of sacred space and have tiny little alters all about my house.  Last year I cleared out the bay window in our bedroom and created a mini-shrine room for meditating each morning.  We use our fireplace hearth for a nature table where we bring symbols of the seasons indoors to celebrate our interconnection with the earth.  A picture of the Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music and the arts, presides over my kitchen (next to some Jade which is for good fortune) and we bring her fresh rosemary or lavender each morning as an expression of gratitude.  

I have an alter-in-a-jar that I take with me to teach yoga to help us unite body, mind, and spirit and to sense the cosmos within.  It's just a silver candle plate with a white tea light but in each of the four directions I place a symbol for each of the elements.  For earth - a small stone, for water - a shell or a river rock, for air - a feather or an acorn top, for fire - well, the candle! ... and for spirit I keep a dried flower because to me it represents kindness and that comes from within.

I think it's important for kids to have sacred space too... quiet places for them to imagine and create... hallowed ground where they're able to recognize that they are of this earth and not separate from it... commercial-free zones where they can touch the elements and connect with themselves and the world around them.

We're a fast-paced world and it's up to us to create space that encourages us to slow down, to step back, to let the laundry wait and instead just... sit... and breathe.  It's not just adults that are effected by the stress of our busy lives.  Kids not only feel our stress but have stress of their own.  Taking time to nurture their spirit and their creativity creates happy kids.  It's a pretty simple equation.

What you put in your sacred space depends, obviously, on what is sacred to you and your kids.  We're working on a fairy garden.  To us, fairies capture the spirit of childhood.  My daughter loves playing like this, making up stories, and acting out their little voices.  So far we've converted a bird house into a fairy house by opening up the little round door into an arched doorway, we built a fairy swing with found wood and garden twine, we put together a fairy picnic table with stones and a glue gun, and made a little fairy bed with tree bark and reclaimed prayer flag. We've been making stick stars and decorated a new one for the fairy garden yesterday.  Our inspiration came from an AMAZING mama's blog, Ordinary Life Magic (here's the tutorial: http://ordinarylifemagic.com/blog/?s=twig+stars).

Stars have long been a symbol of magic and mysticism  and, for many reasons, they feel magical to me.  Venus, the planet named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, creates a five pointed star with her orbit around earth every eight years.  From ancient Greece and Babylonia to Egypt and beyond, the star has been used as a symbol of a Goddess for centuries.  Pythagoras used the star as a symbol for his school which pursued knowledge in mathematics, music, religion, and more.  During the times of the Hebrew Scriptures, the star was also an important symbol representing a secret name of God.

Lavender is a symbol of devotion and is said to have been the color of the Buddha's aura.  The name lavender comes from the Latin lavare, "to wash," since it was often used in bath and laundry waters.  It's been used for centuries as a medicinal herb and is said to relieve  stress, anxiety, exhaustion, irritability, headaches, migraines, insomnia, depression, colds, digestion, flatulence, upset stomach, liver and gallbladder problems, nervousness, and loss of appetite.  It's smell is calming and breathes a soothing scent into the air where I've tied it in bushels around the patio. 

Sacred space can be as small as the space between breaths or as big as the Temple of Artemis.  Regardless of size or location, what matters is that we create them... and the most important thing we can bring to our sacred space is ourselves.  I'm so grateful for this little healing garden that we're creating.  Hopefully, I'll have more luck with herbs than I had with veggies last year... but regardless if my organic healing herbs grow or medicinal recipes work, the space itself has already brought a little more Om into our home.

 fairy by Little Red Whimsy on Etsy

Sacred Refuge

After taking note of Shannon Hayes' book in the New York Times article, The Femivore's Dilemma, this morning I read a fabulous review of Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture.  I've been feeling empowered all day.  Surely, having my existence validated feels good, but that's only a tiny piece of it.  It's more that I've been reminded that I'm not alone in my endeavors to make my home a sacred refuge from economic materialism.  

Throughout the day my thoughts returned to the women I'm honored to know... supra-ordinary mamas who are redefining feminism by simplifying their lives and setting their heart's compass to ecological sustainability, social justice, and family well-being.  In some ways, it feels like the mamas of today have given birth to a new paradigm for femininity.  We've discovered that life outside the office doesn't mean a four walled torture chamber of bon bons and casseroles.  We know what road blind servitude and mindless consumerism takes us down and we're choosing a new path.

I don't think radical homemaking would be possible without the blood and sweat of our feminist sisters who paved the way... and I wouldn't want to stay home if our culture was as patriarchally backwards as it was 50 years ago.  Does this suggest a return of the Sacred Feminine?  Maybe our world is finally beginning to realize that internalizing our female half practically tipped the earth off of her axis. 

With my inner-goddess invoked, our school day felt like a downhill slalom.  I woke up before dawn and sat in meditation for an hour, then spent the sunrise in Surya Namaskara with the Gāyatrī Mantra.  Full of sunbeams and universe juice, it was time for tending to seedlings, plants, and compost, then a slow-paced, mindful breakfast, lesson planning, and organizing artwork into portfolios. 

The highlights of our day included:

a little Greek Mythology...
with the story of Persephone, Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld, from The Lady of Ten Thousand Names: Goddess Stories from Many Cultures retold by Burleigh Muten.  

a silly tongue twister...

Swan swam over the sea

Swim swan! Swim!

Swan swam back again

Well swum swan!

... writing some sentences:

Six swans swim swiftly.

Seven sisters sleep soundly.

Silver stars shine in the sheltering sky.

... spelling our S words in song:

s-e-v-e-n, s-e-v-e-n, s-e-v-e-n, that's how we spell seven!

... an introduction to the second spoke of the dharma wheel, right intention - in Pali samma sankappa:

The Buddha explained right intention as threefold: the intention of renunciation, the intention of good will, and the intention of harmlessness.

... a little piano practice perfecting

a Samba!

Then it was time for a piano lesson, a ballet class, and the park with daddy.  Still, the best part of the day was our continued seeking of spring.  We're blessed to live in a warm little corner of the universe and everywhere we turned, Persephone's work abounded.  Too beautiful for words, I'll close here with some pictures.

cherry blossoms aflame

almost like a lotus unfurling

rosemary gone wild

seedlings sprouting...

 and shining in the sun

baby leaves being born on our favorite oak

welcome little leaves!

spring heralds popping up in the fairy garden

snow peas smiling

and the sweet taste of dew drops!


(support the author and buy Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture direct!)

Fairy Eyes, Beginner's Mind

It started on Sunday with a dear friend and an afternoon walk.  The girls wanted to wear fairy wings, so with their wands in the air, we set out in search of bits, bobs, and lost things to use for building a fairy garden.

The lot next door to our house is empty but for trees, rocks, and wild grasses.  To one set of eyes, a vacant lot is just empty space.  To another, it's a wonderland of secret treasures.  Having kids helps us keep our fairy eyes open... it's that ability to see things with a beginner's mind, with "an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconception," that creates opportunities for learning, growth, and self-awareness.  This is one of the guiding principals of our at-home education:  beginner's mind.

Shunryu Suzuki's book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, reflects a saying of his regarding the way to approach Zen practice: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."  I think this is the best way to approach just about everything.  When our ideas are already formed, there's no room for anything new... no room for anything magical or full of wonder.

In a wonderful lecture, Beginner's Mind, Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman defines beginner's mind as, "...the mind that is innocent of preconceptions and expectations, judgments and prejudices. Beginner's mind is just present to explore and observe and see "things as-it-is." I think of beginner's mind as the mind that faces life like a small child, full of curiosity and wonder and amazement. "I wonder what this is? I wonder what that is? I wonder what this means?" Without approaching things with a fixed point of view or a prior judgment, just asking "what is it?"  

Our world is one where knowing things is held in the highest regard.  Our schools function to test and measure minds and our children are pushed to memorize and repeat facts.  But what about preserving their ability to see things as they are?  What about nurturing their ability to build on ideas of their own?  Isn't this just as valuable (or maybe even more valuable) than the ability to remember things?

I think a child's mind is more than a bowl to fill... more than a receptacle for the things our society deems important.  If we spend all of our days filling up their heads with ideas, then what happens to the ideas of their own?  Equally important to learning about the world from a teacher's or an adult's perspective is seeing the world from a child's eyes.  

We filled a basket with treasures and have been working on our fairy garden all week.  We're practicing wearing our fairy eyes and seeing things just as they are, without prior judgment.  

With practice, we begin to see other aspects of our lives with this mind.  We lose our prejudices and notice that the world is full of wonder and magic.  It's here, in this spacious awareness, that we become free.