Barefoot Walking

Barefoot walking is therapeutic according to 19th century priest Father Sebastian Kneipp from Germany. I'd heard of reflexology and knew that gait can be improved when walking barefoot, but Father Sebastian suggested that a disease he had suffered from was cured. I believe that walking barefoot is good for circulation too. What was interesting was how grounding it was.

We visited an outdoor nature centre, and paet of the experience was a barefoot walking trail. It started off (as you would expect) with the removal of shoes. Babies in slings, and our son holding Captain Underpants hand, we began on latticed rubber matting on mud; that was pleasant enough. The next sensation was a cold muddy waterbath, it was refreshing and a gentle start. The ground under foot gradually became more stoney! The most painful was a waterbath with stones and some coal type rocks. The bed of large rounded stones and log rolls was like a pleasant massage. To finish there was a trail of straw, hardened clay and a squishy mud bath!

I know I always tend to over analyse, but I stopped and spoke to my family about how it really did feel like a therapy. In the moment when you are walking on sharp rocks, there is nowhere else you can be. And it was so grounding to be focussed on each step.

In that moment I woke up. Not in the sense that I wasn't tired, it was rather the opposite, as if I stopped to listen to my body and I felt how exhausted I am. 

I googled Barefoot Therapy and found out there are holidays! I think for now I will dream about building my very own experience in my back garden...


http://www.shacklabank.co.uk/site/content_contact.php

MARY HASKELL [1873 - 1964]

Nothing You Become

Will Disappoint Me

Nothing you become will disappoint me;

I have no preconception that I’d like to see you be or do.

I have no desire to foresee you, only to discover you.

You can’t disappoint me.




This is so beautiful. I keep reminding myself of this in moments when I forget that the children who share my life are a gift from God - an opportunity for me to know beauty.

A Day in the Sun

I always find that it doesn't matter how bad I am feeling, how tired I am, how caught up I am in my negative thinking, as soon as I go outside and potter around the garden,  or go for a walk on a sunny day, I just feel great.

Today we had a long day out, we drove to our nearest town, parked and began strolling through the park down to the town centre.  We went to the health food shop and bought some freshly cooked spanacotas (I cannot spell it - spinach in filo!)  and lentil flan, and with babies in slings still walked to the Buddist cafe. I am so astonished at far one of my babies walked today, she was unstoppable!

I have been reading Deborah Jackson's book "Letting go as children grow" and while I am not even halfway through, it has really illustrated that as far as I have come, I am still trying to control my children. She explains that children, when left to explore naturally, do so safely. (Of course not in front of cars or with chemicals! But within nature they explore and understand their limits). So I have had tolet go because constantly trying to limit one's child can decrease their confidence and   actually hamper their development, making situations less safe for them. She also claims that you can make exploration more dangerous for your child by introducing fear and expectations that can then occur because of the seed of doubt - i.e. if a child is happily balancing on a wall and you say "arghhhhhhh! Look at you, you'll fall!" then knowing that, they'll be thinking about falling and thence fall, when not knowing that they may not have.  Roll on today when my baby is climbing everywhere  and I am having to not look at having to let go. She is climbing onto our dining chairs, then onto the dining table and crawling around eating fruit and then clmbimg back onto the chair and onto the floor. I watched as she once, twice tried to climb down from the table top where there was no chair.. she quickly pulled her legs back up and located the chair andsafely got herself down... on our walktoday Ihad to trust she knew how far she could walk and tried torespect her will and it was enjoyablebut notsomething I can do without support. Two babies need two adult hands!

Okay the kangaroo has nothing to do with a walk in England, I took it in Australia but this kangaroo illustrates the heat of the day and my sense of being in the moment!

Head shake moment of the day: Watching my husband watch the "four candles" sketch on uTube... again.

Detached from Nature

I was walking along thinking how detached I am from nature and the seasons. It is so easy to forget that the world has a rhythm and so do we as humans to. It is autumn and the leaves are dropping and it almost feels like I'm ready to slow down, getting ready to fatten up and hibernate in the coming cold weather.

Even food should follow seasons. Eggs naturally aren't available all year - strawberries, peppers, even apples aren't annually grown. So I have started again with an organic vegetable and fruit box. Now we can only ear what is in season and grown locally.

One thing is got sure, I won't miss returning all the unnecessary wrapping the supermarkets toxify my produce with for no apparent reason.. Yes, I do that.

Cutest baby moment of the day: My girls clapping hands at eachother and giggling!

Making things Simple

On reflection I wonder if my family's beliefs that academic intelligence and education are actually damaging. I've grown up feeling not good enough or feeling superior at times, both ugly experiences.

As I watched my son - his simplicity is so beautiful and I wonder why we spend life making everything so complicated? As if by building this bank of false beliefs about what we need and should or shouldn't do we're somehow successful or important? I've been running around thinking I have to do this, decide where we'll live, when we'll go, how we'll sell the house and what to do because we cannot afford it. I've created so much stress and pain and yet our situation remains the same.

I definitely need to watch my son and baby girls - let them guide me, teach me how to be in the here and now.

Favourite child magic moment of the week: we went for a walk and our son kept walking ahead, he'd scrutinise a stick, murmur to himself, drop it and find another. After a while he turned around and said "none of these have my name on? Where is my stick?". It took me a while to realise when we got there my husband had said "bet there is a big stick here with your name on it!"

A Beautiful Poem

On Children Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Parenting for a Peaceful World

I have been reading Robin Grilles book - Parenting for a Peaceful World. It covers the history of parenting, how they have been raised through the ages and the building research about how important parenting is in shaping children into adults and society overall.

This book was really to read in its content, but not so easy on my emotions. Some parts were hard to read because they are so raw,uncomfortable in terms of how children have been treated historically, but then as we got into the last 100 years and present day and emerging parenting methods - I felt an impending guilt, self -disgust and  pressure to really do better.

One part, I don''t know exactly how it was put, describes how even the best mothers, those with the most loving intentions, become abusive if they do not have any support. That really hit me. I am not saying I am a child abuser - but okay I am actually. Because in term of how I want to parent my children, my ideals, I am abusive. I really do know better but I find it so impossible because I am unsupported, overburdened and lonely. I am not a victim, not anymore because I am going to change the situation. I don't need to live like this to be at my family's pleasure so they can "pop in" and see a grandchild and then go off to live their "own life".

Looking at how authoritarian parents use guilt, control, manipulation to control - I can see why I have been mindwashed to try to please everyone (up until recently) and now understand the overwhelming guilt, self hatred and shame I feel when I even THINK about doing something my old family don't approve of. I guess if you are brought up to be judged and blamed and evaluated, that is how you think to treat everyone, including yourself. You can imagine our family converstaions - you should do this, you shouldn't do that... so painful and negative.

Something to mull over - I'll keep reading this book however painful I find it. If it didn't ring true it wouldn't hurt so bad, and I think if I face it I can change it.

A poem by Mary Haskell that I have been thinking of in the last few days  - great fridge poetry for parents:

"Nothing you become will disapoint me; I have no preconception that I'd like to see be or do. I have no desire to forsee you, only to discover you. You cannot disappoint me"