Nature & Silence

This morning over breakfast we noticed a squirrel taking nuts from the bird table and burying them in the garden. There was also a territorial female blackbird chasing off a robin (why?) and a chaffinch and a couple of bluetits flitting from the birdfeeder to a bush with berries on it. All this frenzied activity was presumably precipitated by the melt of snow and the possible later snowfall? Our old cat got a bit interested in the squirrel, watched for a bit and then decided to go for it, so I called her inside and the call of the warmth was too much to refuse. The children were pressed against the patio doors all the while, until Jem decided she was "bored". I remarked that many people sit in front of a small screen watching exactly the same thing, only not in real life. This is our discovery channel. A fox was seen the other night climbing over the wall opposite the North side of the house. There are rabbits and pheasants there, as well as the two horses that live there. The children love to sit in the big upstairs window that overlooks this field.

As I mentioned before, I have been reading bits in All Year Round, seeking inspiration and guidance in bringing something more wholesome to the children at this time than the non-satisfying, non-nurturing, consumer, materialistic, commercial, etc, etc Xmas winterval. Fugs has been particularly challenging in the last week. Not sure exactly why. Jem is more obviously experiencing the post-Christmas let-down created by excess physical nourishment but not enough spiritual nourishment. (I have tried!) This is not too difficult to deal with as we have been making stuff in peparation for our New Years Eve party, and her friend came round today. (The mum was between sales in different towns, which made me feel glad to be out of this particular activity.) But Fugs has been really hyper, even though I've hidden all the chocolate. He was terrible when Grandma was here, really noisy. It could still be part of his illness as he seems to be still recovering from what I came to describe as the naughty cold, as he was violent from the outset of this (as were other children, so I've heard). Mind, you, they're not used to having daddy around, either.

But I did have some limited success at creating a bit of calm at teatime. They had been running round phoning up the phone and leaving silly messages and shouting; sorry, *learning* how to use a phone and answerphone. We have been lighting candles at mealtimes since the beginning of Advent, but they have been very silly and competitive about blowing them out. (to the point where Ally was copying them and getting other people into trouble at playgroup, who were copying him!). So tonight I decided to try again to do the candle thing properly. I stopped B from lighting the candles before everyone was ready. I made everyone wait until they were sitting quietly, and listening; you could hear the potatoes still frizzling and and the hailstones outside. Then I lit the candles. It was really easy to do this and it brought them right down to a relatively calm mood, which lasted almost for the duration of the meal.

I had been reading about silence in Resurgence magazine. (I'm talking about the Jan/Feb issue, that doesn't appear to be online yet, I think the Nov/Dec issue completely passed me by, which is a shame because I think it would have been useful now) Aparently it is used to treat ADHD: a bit of silent meditation every day is supposed to bring about improvements. I just thought I'd try this one at home! Check out the last but one issue for more interesting education-related articles, especially A Sense of Adventure.

Another thing I had been reading about in Resurgence, in my sick bed, was James Lovelock on the urgency to out a stop, or damage limitation, to climate change. He even recommends changing to nuclear power, however, I do tend to agree with the counter argument to this. (these articles will be online soon, I believe) And this made me ponder about how much, or little I was doing to save the planet, as this has been one of my lifelong aims (!) I suppose the choices I have made for the children's education are the biggest and most important things I could think of. And then I got up and heard about the Earthquake/tidal wave. Apocalyptical stuff.