Homeschooling vs Public Education by Saralee Sky

There is a phrase in the US Constitution: "To provide for the general welfare." This phrase gave rise to federal taxation to provide such diverse services as science and technology, the environment, health care and education. It was the phrase that gave birth to the public school system.

While you may or may not approve of the public education system as it now stands in our country, it remains a most noble attempt at providing every citizen with the basics, the 3 R's: Readin', Ritin', and Rithmetic. What is so very great about this country is that - while it does provide this basic educational service - we are all free to refuse it and to follow our own designs and dreams as far as educating our children goes.

When my children were young, we lived 2 miles up a dirt road and then another 5 very curvy miles down a 2-lane blacktop to the local school. When I took my oldest son, Joseph, to Kindergarten, he hid under a desk and it just felt wrong to me. So I took him out of school and kept him at home for that year. When the next year rolled around, we tried another school, 45 minutes away along the same curvy road. The ride was exhausting, but the school was wonderful: three rooms, grades K-8 and 85 students total. Joseph loved this school and Teacher Judy.

We made the journey twice a day, went through two oil pans and various other auto parts, and I look back on that time and wonder why I just didn't give up on public education and keep Joseph at home with me. That was a long time ago and the resources for homeschooling were not plentiful. Today I receive a magazine called Life Learning, which encourages homeschooling, self-directed learning and unschooling.

These are radical concepts to me, especially letting go of "teachable moments' and trusting children to learn on their own when they are ready and interested in the subject. I am afraid I suffer from "teacheria" - the unconrolable urge to teach my grandchildren about the tides when we are at the beach, or the seasons when we see a leaf fall, or why it is snowing instead of raining. You get the picture. Sometimes my granddaughter looks at me and says, "Uh-uh," while shaking her head "no." At first I thought she was telling me that I was wrong about whatever I was trying to teach her. Then I realized that she was just telling me to shut up!

So now I will shut up and close this article by saying: if you feel ready to jump into homeschooling or unschooling I say Go For It! If not, be ready to help out at your local school whenever possible, because the government has its hands full providing for the general welfare, and public education has to take a back seat these days to many other concerns.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Gratitude is the intention to count your blessings every day, every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible, the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances. (Timothy Miller) Trying to maintain an attitude of gratitude is very hard for me. I start out all sparkly and loving and full of thanks, but gradually I sink down into old resentments and self-pity. Why should I be so grateful? Don't I deserve more? More abundance? More fame? More success? More pats on the back?

What do rich and famous people have that I don't have, besides money and fame? Why can't I just snap my fingers and have all that I need, all that I truly deserve?

Is it possible to feel blessed and resentful at the same time? I think so. Perhaps it is higher self and lower self battling it out. My ego says I deserve more, but my inner self says I have all that I need right now to be a fully enlightened being.

Let go, let it go, let it be, let me be. Enough of the ruminations and self pity. Life is good and I am perfect just the way I am and I am good and I am life and I am grateful for each breath I take.

This is the battle of my life. I hope this new year will see me become the truly powerful, loving, grateful being that I know I can be. Medicine Woman. Om Shanti.

Celebrating Christmas

I was raised in a Conservative Jewish household. I spent many years studying Hebrew and going to Sunday School, attending a synagogue, celebrating only Jewish holidays. Yet I secretly loved Christmas: the decorations, the tree, the beautiful carols and the celebration of the birth of a little baby in a manger.

When I graduated from college and moved to San Francisco I started celebrating Christmas. I loved being able to decorate a tree and feel a part of this holiday away from my family's confused and disapproving eyes. My love for Christmas continues to this day.

This year it finally dawned on my just why I love Christmas so much - aside from the tree and the beautiful songs and lights. I love Christmas because it is the only holiday I am aware of that celebrates the natural birth of a baby. Christmas celebrates the birth of the little baby Jesus and his loving mother Mary. Mary has become a symbol of all that is good and selfless and pure about motherhood. And Jesus is the little innocent babe who is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Perfect.

Perfect for me whose prefessional career has been devoted to the health and well being of mothers and babies. Christmas in its purest form is a holiday made for me, the original Baby Nut!

A Bird Does Not Sing Because It Has An Answer

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. (Chinese Proverb) There is no "If - Then". There are no conditions to the singing. Cage a bird and - though saddened by the loss of its freedom to take wing - it will still sing.

This applies to humans as well. I heard on NPR about a Jewish man and woman who found love in a concentration camp during WWII. Miraculously they both survived and were able to marry after the war. While everything around them was bleak and full of depravity and despair, they found a way to sing their song of love.

In Yiddish it is called a nigun, a melody, a tune, a song we are forever trying to remember, to recapture and to sing. In the journey to recapture my nigun, I discovered Kirtan, or sacred chant. I play the harmonium and sing chants in Sanskrit and other languages. The words are songs glorifying the divine. The words repeat themselves over and over and the effect is mesmerizing, heart opening. Shivaya Nama Om, Shivaya Nama Ha. By naming and honoring aspects of the divine, I am also honoring my own divinity, my own sacredness.

A baby in the womb first hears its mother's song. The baby is nourished by the cord connecting her to her mother, and she is also soothed and carried by the song she is surrounded by as she floats and grows. Perhaps it is the emergence of the baby's own song that pulls them from the womb. Gradually her own song takes the place of her mother's. Where will that song take her? What bits of melody will inform her life as she grows?

When we are little babies I believe we hear our own song loud and clear. It is so much a part of us that we do not need to sing it aloud, though some of us may try. As we grow older the needs and expectations of others may soon drown out the sound of our own song, our nigun: so many voices clamoring for our attention; so many outer enticements pulling us away from our center. Still the song keeps on singing deep within, high and low, soft and loud, fast and slow. At night before sleep we can almost hear it. In our dreams we catch snatches of the melody.

As our life unfolds we will look for answers. Why? Why is life so hard? So cruel? So unfair? So short? So long? What does it all mean? Why am I here?

Life's longing for itself is the only answer needed. The only condition to the living of life is this: sing your song, your nigun. Only you can sing your uniquely You song. Only you can hear the melody, the words, the rhythm. Only you know when it is soft or loud, high or low, fast or slow. To hear it and to sing it and to live it, you must listen within, to your inmost place, where the nigun of your life goes on.