Barefoot magazine

Issue five Autumn 2010 $7.95

Connections Resilience Kitchen remedies Fair trade

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Contents 6 9 12 22 26 30 36 41 16 20 24 34 14 28 33 40 4 6 18 21 32 38

Features

Resilience and community connectedness A call for a national ‘say G’day’ day A map for navigating family life Systems theory explained Making connections Oneness, waves and dancing

Children

Life, death and the whole shebang Backyard chickens Sugar, spice and all things nice Putting sugar in its place Institutionalising division and injustice in our education system State versus private school education Seasonal craft Autumn inspirations Bubbly love The Mother of all teenagers

People

Fair trade The truth about what we’re buying On birthing Seneka Liefe Lorraine tells the story of Seneka’s birth Introducing MAGA Maiden, Mother, Maga, Crone On being a seperated grandad One grandfather’s journey

Earth

Backyard magic Helping children develop a love of nature Kitchen cupboard remedies The healing properties of calendula Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

This house is our home Seasonal soul food Coming back to earth

Regulars

Letters Your say From the team Editorial Reviews Book reviews Seneka’s tales Working as a midwife Educating...at home Learning versus teaching Ordinary people doing extraordinary things Human rights advocacy AND raising a family in Cambodia

Issue five Autumn 2010 $7.95

The theme for this issue is connections. Connections to community, family, self, the divine, nature and more.

Connections Resilience Kitchen remedies Fair trade

Barefoot Magazine is produced by Budding Iris Publications. It seeks to inform, challenge, support, respect and inspire mothers, fathers, grandparents, carers and communities to live more consciously and value the importance of children and family life.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed in Barefoot are not to be considered those of the editors or publishers, who accept no liability of any nature arising out of, or in connection to, the contents of Barefoot Magazine.

Publishing Team Charlotte Young, Rachel Watts, Anna Foletta Co-Editors

For this editorial, I’ve sat, walked, talked and listened for many moments contemplating connections with the desire to offer some deep and meaningful inspiration.

But the more I’ve thought, the more connections have shown themselves EVERYWHERE and I’ve been left high and dry for words. At times, I’ve felt like I’ve been moving through a quantum hologram, making connections out of connections.

What a colourful world of weaving, threads and webs we would live in if they were all made visible.

The main conclusion I’ve come to is that connection and connecting is about a sense of belonging; belonging to the moment, to the world, to another, to nature, to a creative project—the list is endless—but the connection, the belonging is a fluid state of being, not a static thing to be grasped. For then, the meaningful engagement turns into a longing to be (or to have), which becomes more about the head than the heart, the fantasised future or the longed for past than the moment.

One of the most profound connections I have made is with Rachel and Anna. It was tragedy (the sudden death of Iris, Rachel’s daughter) that really brought us together and led the way for us to plumb depths none of us had ever reached before; Rachel swimming far deeper and further than Anna and me. Layers and masks fell away for all of us; tears and compassion washed us transparent. Over time, we have flown too, spanning arches of dreams together, collaborating, working and smiling. For all of this, I am thankful.

Out of our connection to each other, to Iris, to the grief of losing a child, to the grit and beauty of life, comes this latest issue of Barefoot…Happy reading!

Rachel Watts, Charlotte Young Design/Admin Anna Foletta Proofreading Skye Windebank Advertising Monique DeGroot Interested in finding out more about Barefoot magazine?

Visit our website: www.barefootmagazine.com.au Barefoot magazine is designed & produced in Australia.

Barefoot magazine is printed in Australia by Printgraphics Pty Ltd under ISO 14001 Environmental Certification.

It is printed using vegetable based inks onto 100% recycled paper made entirely from post consumer waste.

Copyright of each piece belongs to the author/artist/ photographer; copyright of the magazine belongs to Budding Iris Publications. Republication is permitted on request to author/artist/photographer and the editors.

Charlotte, Rachel and Anna p.s. We would like to acknowledge all the writers, artists and photographers who have contributed to this issue—big time thanks and hearty wishes to you!

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Letters...

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I feel extremely fortunate to have stumbled across Barefoot whilst visiting family over Christmas. I found the whole magazine thought provoking and inspiring but have been particularly affected by the article ‘Great expectations’ (Summer 2009). Through a simple change of attitude and the removal of expectation, I have experienced a total shift from a relationship with regular conflict and resentment to one of mutual respect and calm. Words can’t express my thanks for these wise words and the honesty with which they were written.

‘Playgroup for Adults’ has also had a tremendous impact. As I toil in my garden on my own, I now think constantly about how I can go about organising a Food for Thought group in my community. I look forward to reporting in again shortly to let you know about the success of the group that forms.

Thank you for making a difference.

Phoebe Maroulis Wellington, NSW

The best things happen when you’re barefoot....

A romantic stroll on the beach, barefoot.

Dancing like nobody’s watching, barefoot.

The first time you see your child, barefoot.

The early morning nappy change, barefoot.

Playing with the kids in the backyard, barefoot.

Slipping into an aromatherapy bath, barefoot.

Crawling into a welcoming bed, barefoot.

Waking up to a new day, barefoot.

Reading your favourite magazine, barefoot.

Monique DeGroot Narre Warren, VIC My daughter and I have already held conversations about the archaic times when women could not vote or were even burnt at the stake for their beliefs.

Am I now to update the story with news

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Our star letter wins a Mini Tote Bag from 4MyEarth..

of a rigid curtailing of her reproductive rights? Is this to be yet another blow to our rights of self-determination that can be added to the long list of such injustices throughout the history of humanity? Have we evolved so little that there is still not enough room in the world for freedom of choice? Is nature so truly undermined in our time that we can no longer choose where, when and how we give birth? Is this not a primary right as a human being?

How do I explain to my daughter that the loving, experienced and skilled hands that she beheld caring for her mother, during the joyful arrival of her brother, will be rendered obsolete in the outlawing of homebirth in the event of impending changes that leave midwives under the rigid rule of doctors and obstetricians? Give me a doctor who understands the intricacies of my family’s unique and individual needs, who has heard our stories and come to understand our histories over long cups of tea and I will hear what he has to say.

Lucy Pierce Warrandyte, VIC

Calling all you communicators...

The letter’s page is yours dear reader – so tell us what you’re thinking, feeling, doing! It’s a good way to connect.

Write and go in the running to win this gorgeous set of natural wood blocks from Spiral Garden. www.spiralgarden.com.au Come on! Don’t just think it, say it!

Send letters to: admin@barefootmagazine.com.au

Barefoot Autumn 2010 Contributors: Writers (in order of appearance): Andrew Fuller, Claire Miran-Khan, Adam Barley, Yolande Larrett, Emma Davidson, Kane Ord, Lorraine AustinHannaford, Seneka Cohen, Lyndel Caffrey, Jane Hardwicke Collings, Dr Sandra Parsons, Jacqui Fee, Dr. Micheal Loughnane, Maria Lerch, Lucy Dawson, Jan Bruck, Sandra Pyke, Rachel Watts, Lisa Devine, Sarah Young Artwork: Julia Symons, Sarah Brown, Narissa Butler, Eliza Hay, Tina Papasavvas, Gwenn Moen, Lucy Pierce (back cover) Photography: Front cover: Mia Finney Tammy Lynn, Yolande Larrett, Natural Origins, Seneka Cohen, Rachel Watts, Jane Hardwicke Collings, Eliza Hay, Sally Koster, Jo-Ann Lim & Justin Flurscheim

Barefoot Summer 2009 Issue: Issue four Summer 2009 $5.95

The wisdom of our hands Peaceful families The ‘m’ word Raw food

Resilience and community connectedness A call for a national ‘Say G’day’ day

words

‘Suburbs are known only to dogs and children.

Andrew Fuller

They sniff, circle, explore, trespass, uncover unguessed, circuitous byways and acquire

artwork Julia Symons Andrew Fuller is a clinical psychologist and family therapist with a longstanding interest in adolescent

bizarre acquaintances. Children and dogs discover all of a suburb. Cats have some knowledge, but they too often take to trees or balance on fences—habits they share with their owners, traits which preclude an intimate penetration of private defences’

Nancy Keesing, We Told You So

development and resilience.

www.andrewfuller. com.au

Children thrive best when they grow up as part of a gang. The most important gang they will ever belong to is their family. And their family is also part of a much larger gang known as the community.

Not so long ago children grew up supported by an inter-connected latticework of neighbours, shop-owners, local elders, extended family, sports coaches, teachers, scout’s and guide’s leaders and religious leaders.

In many parts of the country, the local community appears to have snuck behind the fence, kept out of sight indoors and is as hard to spot as a rare nocturnal species.

Despite this, our research on resilience indicates time and time again that having adults outside your family who take an interest in you is associated with positive outcomes for children.

Children today know little of their locality as they remain tucked indoors. Today childhood is largely an indoor sport. Many of the families that I meet are both alert and alarmed. They keep their children away from the outside world and instead place them in front of the Comedy and Discovery channels.

So okay, how do we build strong communities and make meaningful connections?

Firstly, we know that community relationships do not occur by accident. They occur when areas are designed to facilitate interaction and when there are structures and reasons in place for people to meet and get to know one another.

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Community building doesn’t happen by accident—we need to plan for it.

We also need to recognise that communities differ dramatically. Some already have high levels of knowledge about one another and interact easily and deeply. Others are divided; with little common sense of unity. Yet others are time poor areas where adults skulk out to work in the morning and return bone-weary in the evenings. This means we need to help local people to tailor local solutions to local problems.

Resilience is an important and protective strength for children, adolescents and adults alike. Resilient people are able to cope well with challenges and difficulties. They are able to stick at things that are tough and are able to survive and integrate adverse events more easily than those who are less resilient.

With the assistance of the Resilience Foundation (see www.resilience.org.au), I have been researching the factors in communities that consistently associate themselves with positive outcomes. These give us at least the main areas to consider acting upon. The factors are outlined below: Connectedness to adults This is the extent that young people feel that adults in their area—including teachers, parents, and community leaders—value and link with them.

Of course for this to happen young people have to be able to meet these people in the first place.

Outside of structured activities such as youth clubs, scouts, guides, sports clubs, school and church, there are often very few whole community activities where almost everyone gets a chance to be involved.

Empowerment The degree that young people feel they can make positive changes in their areas and have their thoughts and ideas listened to. In many parts of Australia, community initiatives are provided for young people rather than being created by them.

This risks lessening the involvement and ownership by the young people in the area. Generally where young people are empowered to create initiatives

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cont...

Resilience and com-

they come up with ideas that are quite different from those of adults but are very effective.

munity connectedness

Boundaries and expectations This assesses the clarity of a community’s boundaries and expectations about behaviour. One of the key indicators of violence and youth crime in a community is the number of weeknights young people are out without their parents knowing where they are.

Having adults discuss the type of area they want to live in and the sorts of expectations they have, regarding issues such as teen parties, makes a great difference in a community.

Use of time This factor is about using free time well. So far in our research this is the area that is typically the lowest across Australian communities. Young people may have great social skills and empowerment but it counts for little if they have no involvement in the social world of a community.

A number of communities I have worked in have provided lots of facilities for young people that were under-utilised. It was only when we asked young people to become involved in creating activities that positively involve young people that attendance and participation increased.

Engagement in learning This measures how schools are valued by the local community; whether families as well as students feel that school is a place they can learn things that interest them.

Hopefulness Hopefulness is a predictor of good outcomes and resilience. This is the degree a community feels hopeful about their area, feels positively about the future and feels able to improve those aspects that cause a sense of dissatisfaction.

Positive values This is how people feel about volunteering, participating in acts for the common good of the community and helping others less fortunate

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than themselves. Young people often feel keenly about doing this but can feel blocked from implementing initiatives in this area. When a community takes on a project to improve the lot of a specified group and asks young people to assist the gains in empowerment are substantial.

Social skills This is the ability and confidence to make new friends, to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence, and to stand up for what is right even if it is unpopular to do so. By increasing opportunities for people to link and meet in a community we reduce anonymity and isolation and enhance social cohesion.

Positive identity This is how good people feel about themselves; that they can make a contribution and a difference in the world.

Together these nine areas help us to think about the priority areas for building resilient communities. You might like to think about how well your area is doing in each of these areas.

It is wonderful to see that when people are given a common focus, they are willing to pitch in and make a difference. It is even lovelier to see how that difference can convert into major gains in resilience for young people.

The key lesson from my research is that it doesn’t take much to create a lasting positive effect in resilience. However, it does require that people get a chance to get together and to talk about how to improve life in their areas. For this reason I’d love to see Australia create a national ‘Say G’day’ day each year where neighbours would be encouraged to go up to people they don’t know and say ‘Hello’, where they could talk about local improvements that could be made.

Who knows? It could develop into people getting together and throwing something on the barbeque or in the wok and starting the real conversations and relationships that are the foundation stones of community connections and resilience.

A map for navigating family life Systems theory explained

words Claire Miran-Khan artwork Sarah Brown Claire Miran-Khan is a family therapist working in private practice where she provides post graduate training, counselling and consulting. Claire is also the mother of two adult daughters.

I often wonder how people survive the decisionmaking demands of everyday life without a theoretical map to guide them. I feel privileged that at a very young age I stumbled across family therapy and systems theory. Systems theory is utilised by many disciplines and is one of the core theories informing family therapy practice. I discovered that not only was this immensely helpful in my work as a psychiatric nurse, but invaluable as I embarked on the long journey of marriage, parenting, building a private practice, launching offspring and more recently a husband after a thirty-two year marriage.

Systems theory is a complex theory, so for the purpose of this article, I am selecting some of the concepts that, I believe, are most helpful for both the families I work with and as a guide for my own family life.

The first step is to start thinking about the family as a system, or as an organised whole. One of the defining features of the ‘whole’ are repetitive predictable patterns. Every family member plays a part. No one is immune from the actions of another. The smallest act of one member will reverberate throughout the family system. Decisions made by one family member—a personal choice, for example—will inevitably always impact on others to varying degrees.

Something as trivial as cooking a meal can ripple into a tidal wave. Embedded in this act are many of the values of the system. If the meal is not liked this can be used as evidence proving that the cook, usually mum, does not love the meal-hater, usually a child: ‘If you loved me you wouldn’t cook something I hate’. It’s a small but common step to then get caught into trying to disprove the charge.

If this pattern becomes fixed and repetitive then this can form a problematic hierarchy where the cook/mum does odd things like cook different meals for everyone in an attempt to keep her family happy (that’s her job, being one core value).

This becomes the established, expected hierarchy of the family and in turn another core value of the system.

Regardless of the issues, systems theory provides a map for facilitating understanding. The benefit

of this can be to shift emotional reactions, often assisting in neutralising rather than inflaming emotions. By identifying and scrutinising the logic of it being mum’s job to keep the family happy, the theory can help the cook/mum unhook from trying to prove her love and happiness-makingskill by cooking everyone their favourite dish.

Knowing that she does love them regardless of what she cooks and that each member of the family is responsible for their own happiness can also potentially place her appropriately in the family hierarchy.

Every system has a boundary around it. This boundary guides the relationship with the broader world. It’s like a fence that filters what comes in from the outside world and what goes out to the world from the individuals within the family. These boundaries aren’t fixed and usually change over time. A family with a very tight external boundary is usually very fearful. Any attempt at independence is micromanaged. The children, usually at adolescence, will attempt to challenge the tight family boundary. These challenges can take many forms from raging to retreating from the world.

Most families today, as a result of the way our culture is currently promoting consumerism and growth, have more diffuse boundaries with lots of page

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naughty.

Because we are all operating in a world with constantly shifting values, our core beliefs are continually challenged. This is an important process as it is flexibility in relation to the shifts in community values that helps a family system work reasonably well. Sometimes a system does not have enough shared core beliefs to hold it together and unresolvable conflict emerges. An example might be a difference in how the money should be spent. One partner might want to put all the money into the mortgage, the other into everyday quality of life. If each holds their position rigidly then every financial decision becomes a battle. The children also join in the battle supporting the parent to whom they feel closest.

Something as simple as buying a coffee becomes a major assault. When this happens the members have to either redefine themselves or the system becomes redundant. However, it is also true that no core beliefs, shared or otherwise, can stop things from going wrong. energy going in and out. Consequently it’s not uncommon to be working with families where everyone is exhausted (and broke). Over time all this ‘doing’ erodes the sense of the family as a unit.

The primary connections are with outsiders rather than family members. The family struggles to maintain family rituals because the cultural voice is pushing the ‘do more’ line. The family boundary essentially needs to act like a sensor identifying what is workable for the family at this point in time. What is right at one point in time might be wrong at another. There are no universally right decisions. It’s the core family values that will assist in deciding what is important for one’s own family. This clarity can enable the ignoring of the ‘shoulds’ that so many of us feel compelled to obey like invisible dictators.

These core beliefs define the belonging of a family unit. They glue the system together. Identifying them is not always easy and often the children have more ability to do so, especially when asked questions like, ‘what’s really important to your family?’ Children can usually give succinct and accurate answers about the values that glue the family system together. Every individual carries many

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core beliefs—often invisibly—within them.

The combination of these core beliefs gives the family its definition as a whole and this in turn provides the sense of belonging.

A common client profile is of a family who is caring and puts a lot of thought into their decision-making. This is a shared value of the parents and therefore a core value of the family system. The family hierarchy is appropriate; the parents are in charge.

Mysteriously they have a naughty child who is causing havoc at school. This act breaches the family boundary by bringing the school into the family system in a way that embarrasses them. Using the systems theory map you could identify the child’s behaviour as an alarm signalling all is not well. It’s impossible to know what exactly is not going well without seeing the whole family. Nonetheless some explanations could be: that the child is very sensitive and has cued into some hidden unhappiness in one or both of the parents. Or, the child is causing trouble because an injustice is being done and in a way s/he is trying to fix things. Tracking the family’s explanations will usually uncover that the child is trying to be caring and so conforming to the core values of the family, albeit in an annoying way. In my experience it’s the most sensitive child that somehow ends up the most

Sometimes things do just go wrong.

When this happens it is core beliefs that help us navigate our way through. This is when families often struggle because the traumatic event may uncover variances in what were thought to be shared beliefs. This can result in confusion and/ or conflict. Unfortunately nobody is ever going to be 100% accurate about what is right for the other members of their family. If respect for others is a core belief then there is more chance of getting a satisfying shared solution; respect will enable acceptance of difference which ironically will keep the family system threaded together.

As we move through the life cycle it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the complexity and interdependence of everyone in the system. Navigating all the greys is a daily challenge. Systems theory helps bridge the absence of straightforward right or wrong ideology. Whist this is a simplification of the original theory, hopefully readers can gather some clues about how to understand their own family system. Think about the family as a mobile, the core beliefs are the strings that hold it together and if one piece moves no matter how slightly it will disturb the balance of the whole.

Making connections Oneness, waves and dancing

words Adam Barley photos Tammy Lynn www.tammylynn. com.uk Adam Barley has been teaching Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rhythms® since the early 90’s, and is renowned throughout the western world for his bighearted, high-energy, transformative work. For more information see www. adambarley.com. He lives with his family in the Cotswolds, England.

Isn’t it connection that we all long for? Isn’t it what we spend most of our time chasing either directly or indirectly? The experience of moving from separation to oneness is blissful. It’s sex, it’s love, it’s coming home, and we want it. Of course there’s another part of us that’s on the run from ourselves, that would rather zone out, dumb down, disconnect from anything that makes us feel. But that’s a relatively superficial layer, even if we’ve made a long term commitment to be identified with it. In the quiet, deeper places of the heart we all long for a sense of connection, to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to be moved by life, to be touched by love.

Our collective reality has been one of disconnection for a long, long time; Newtonian physics and Darwinian ecology merely explained and cemented a world view that had its roots way back with a god that was ‘up there’, and its expression in countless generations of warfare. Millennia of violent oppression took a hatchet to the natural connection between earth and heaven, between body and spirit: where it was found it was burnt at the stake, imprisoned, tortured, exiled.

The result is a perceived reality in which I am separate from you and everything around me; God is so damn separate I’m not sure ‘he’ even exists at all, and if I’m to get what I want I’m probably going to have to fight you for it.

This is a painful reality to live in; it’s such a small truth, and small is not all that we are. This is the reality of the ego, or the left-brain. The other side of our intelligence, the right half of the brain, perceives reality completely differently. From this point of view, everything is one. There is no separation, just one unified field that we’re all part of. (If you haven’t seen the talk Jill Bolte Taylor gave on this subject, google her name and ‘stroke’. Eighteen minutes of sheer inspiration.)

This paradigm of ego, of separation, is killing us.

It’s killing our spirit as individuals, as cultures, and is reaching the point where it threatens our survival as a species. The results of this small-minded perception have become so widespread and damaging, that the time is really NOW to make a shift. We have to change. I don’t need to argue the case for that here, do I? Plenty of other more informed and better writers have gone before me

Loneliness is a phantom feeling. You’re never alone once you’ve made a connection to your mysterious, multifaceted, diamond, glow-in-thedark self.

Gabrielle Roth

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cont...

Making connections

on that score.

5 Rhythms® and I’ve been studying this practice ever since; for almost twenty years. The rhythms But how??? How do we shift reality, grow our perspectives, balance our intelligence, and recover are the fastest most powerful medicine for connection I’ve found—connection to myself and other these fundamental connections that have been people—medicine for that fundamental wound so deeply severed? What can we do, as individubetween body and spirit. They have taken me to als, that would be in service to a collective shift of utter despair, rage and terror, and taught me how perspective in this direction? to access the kind of strength to get through feelFor me, my first shot was meditation. I used simple ings like that and come out the other side danctechniques I learnt from an Indian master, sitting ing, right into the most ecstatic blissful power and still for an hour a day. I definitely got connected beauty I’ve ever known. to something, touching right into the source.

Any physical movement has this effect if it’s done Beautiful. But…meanwhile my life was rolling on. with an attitude of deep awareness and openness.

I became a father, crashed my marriage, and Movement is life, and life is spirit made flesh. finished a degree realising I didn’t believe in it So when we pay attention to movement we are any more. Lost. Getting connected to my higher self was all very well, but I wasn’t dealing with the paying attention to the way spirit moves, and we profound fears, furies and pain that I was carrying begin to experience the reality that spirit and body are lovers, endlessly intertwining with each other, around: I was by-passing them, using the blissful longing for each other, delighting in each other. experience of deep meditation to escape my own humanity. I wasn’t learning how to be with my own sexuality, or how to relate to someone else. I wasn’t figuring out how to give something to the world as an adult.

I collapsed in grief and found a therapist. I was lucky enough to find a highly skilled, big-hearted and far-seeing man. He saw me, accepted me, appreciated and praised me, even loved me. It was like having a stone lifted off me, coming out from under a life-long shadow, and the key was that he touched me emotionally. I also did groupwork with him—1980’s encounter style, which was a total eye-opener. I found that I enjoyed, and was good at, relating to people in edgy ways and extreme emotional states. I opened up and showed myself, letting go of huge wads of shame, guilt and fear. I learnt to see deeper into what was happening and to trust life as it unfolded; I discovered that there is magic in everything if only the mind and heart can stay open.

All this was a massive step forwards. But…he was father to me, and the time came to leave home.

His work and my connection with him opened a major doorway, but I couldn’t stay in that doorway, I had to keep walking. Leaving him psychologically took about two years, and literally within two days of a key stage in that process, he killed himself. I’d seen him only once in those two years.

I was devastated. Yet the gift of the timing wasn’t lost on me either; it was like rocket fuel to my development, goading me to take responsibility for my experience, and plunging me into a world of extreme darkness and light.

It was just at this time that I found Gabrielle Roth’s

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The rhythms add another dimension though, because they actually map out the essence of the creative process, this mother of all connections, the journey of connection between body and spirit.

They give form and structure to what happens anyway, which intensifies and focuses the experience.

Energy moves in waves, and when it changes from one state to another, just like on the ocean shore it goes through breaking waves. The 5 Rhythms map out the precise nature of breaking waves, identifying the stages that energy goes through naturally as it transforms—flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness.

Things naturally begin in a receptive, gentle, flowing way. A wave out at sea is a rounded flowing shape. Then energy builds and things naturally get more edgy, staccato; the wave grows to a sharp peak. At some point the wave has to break, and we all know this stage in the creative process, when things just seem to fall apart, structures break down, and all we can do is let go. Trying to shove the wave back into its staccato stage is ridiculous. This is the rhythm of chaos. There is life after chaos though! A breaking wave becomes a fascinating tumble of myriad shapes and forms, light and bubbly; after we’ve let go there is a lightness of touch that’s possible. After the storm there’s a freshness in the air, and if we stay with it through the crisis, the creative process yields it’s magic, as every artist knows. This is lyrical. Finally every journey reaches completion, the wave reaches the shore, energy has completely changed shape, and we land in the rhythm of stillness.

This practice takes me deep and keeps me real.

If I can only let my head go, so that rather than thinking or talking I’m dancing, if I can let my feet carry me round and round, so I’m not stuck in the mud, if I can just take enough deep breaths to blow away the cobwebs, then I’m free. I’m free of that numbed out, held in, weighed down place that somehow I grew up learning to inhabit, despite my parents’ best intentions. I’m free of the chat room in my head, paying attention instead to a wilder juicier beat. I’m free of yesterday and tomorrow, captivated instead by the energy flooding through me, feeling like a vessel for God (whatever ‘God’ means to the individual).

And isn’t that how it really is?? We ARE a vessel for the divine! We’ve just got to find ways to FEEL IT. This is the ultimate connection, when we actually experience ourselves as one with all-that-

is, with the silence inside the sound, the stillness inside the dance. The place where words fail us, and thinking is superseded by pure experience. In the end this is what it’s all about: every experience of connection is a taste of oneness with God. We want nothing less. Only the ultimate will do; we want to go on connecting over and over again.

We want that rush, that peace, that satisfaction, that ‘ahhhhhh’… over and over again. We want it all, but we need to start where we are. Small steps, one at a time, do work.

It IS time to make a shift collectively. And it’s up to us as individuals to do the work. So take a breath.

Right now. Take a breath and look up from your life. Let your head roll around your shoulders and take you somewhere. Find your feet and dance for this life.

This is it.

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Backyard magic Helping children develop a love of nature words & image Yolande Larrett

Yolande Larratt is a freelance writer and photographer, and mother to her beautiful daughter, Amari.

Children love nature. Even on a cold, windy day most kids can’t wait for the back door to open to run outside and explore. Parents can help to lay a positive, loving connection between children and nature from infancy, thereby educating the next generation of custodians of our physical environment.

Dr Louise Chawla interviewed a number of environmental activists in a well documented 1990’s study. Her research found that individuals who chose to take action to benefit the environment as adults reported positive experiences of nature and the outdoors as children. They also reported that parents and close family members had a mentoring role towards nature. ‘The very fact that a parent or grandparent chose to take the child with them to a place where they themselves found fascination and pleasure, to share what engaged them there, suggests not only care for the natural world, but equally, care for the child.’1 This research and other research from around the world, continues to highlight the importance of unstructured play outdoors. We can nurture a child’s sense of awe and wonderment towards nature in our backyards, local parks and gardens.

Even the simplest of backyards can provide stimulating opportunities for children. Here are some simple ideas: Take a picnic rug outside and listen to the sounds of nature. They can listen to the sounds of birds, insects and the rustling of leaves in the wind.

Toddlers can roam around and explore gardens, observe and touch the trees, leaves and grass and will enjoy picking flowers.

Invest in a simple child-friendly gardening set, including a watering can and spade. Raking, pulling out weeds and watering the plants are a few of the many outdoor tasks that for a child are riveting rather than chore-like.

the humble sand pit and toddler pool.

Children love to collect things. Encourage your children to make a collection of special items that interest them, for example, pieces of bark, interesting rocks or crystals, shells or leaves.

Create a nature journal. Help your child draw and record information about the natural world, for example, the weather, seasons, insects or birds.

Make your child a scientist! Equip him with a set of binoculars and a magnifying glass, and use containers and labels for collecting things.

Stimulate your child’s imagination by building fairy or gnome houses out of twigs and leaves.

Flowers can be used in many ways. Help your child to make decorations such as daisy chains.

Use a flower press to dry flowers that you can stick on greeting cards.

Attract birds to your garden by having a bird house and a bird bath. Refer to a bird book to classify the birds.

Remember your child will learn from your reactions to the natural world, so show your respect and fascination towards the environment. Your child will develop a fear of bugs if you have the same fear. Don’t be afraid to get dirty!

Finally, not only is outdoor play immensely enjoyable for children, but games that have nature in the mix tend to be eco-friendly and healthier. The obvious health benefits of regular, unstructured time outdoors include increased physical activity, fresh air and sunlight. Research also shows that children tend to be less stressed, are more creative, experience fewer symptoms of ADD and ADHD and have stronger immune systems2.

Happy playing!

1 Louise Chawla, Learning to Love the Natural World Enough to Protect It, Barn nr. 2, 2006: 57-78, Norsk senter for barneforskning http://www.childrenandnature. org/downloads/Chawla_LearningtoLove.pdf

Maintaining a backyard vegetable garden or vegetable pots will keep your child more interested 2 http://www.greenhour.org/section/about/info/campaign over a longer period of time than any toy. It is truly miraculous that through ongoing care and attention, vegetables are produced from your garden!

Children learn scooping, pouring and mixing in page

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Fair trade The truth about what we’re buying

words Emma Davidson images Natural Origins Emma is the founder of Brindabella Baby, Canberra’s first specialist eco-friendly and fair trade baby shop.

She has three children aged five and under, and participates in more volunteer groups for environment and social justice causes than she really has time for.

Emma says that sleep is for wimps, and liberated women don’t do housework.

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‘The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty’ - I didn’t say that, Colin Powell said that...In these disturbing and distressing times, surely it’s cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them. Africa is not the frontline of the war against terror. But it could be soon. Justice is the surest way to get peace.’

Bono, UK Labour Party Conference, September 2004 Many people take the opportunity to refine the principles by which they live their life when they bring a new child into the world. One of the principles that growing numbers of Australian parents are concerned about is fair trade. It’s about the workers who make the products we use every day receiving fair pay, and having safe working conditions.

While I’ve always had an interest in social justice and fair trade issues, it wasn’t until I returned to work after maternity leave that I really understood the impact that my consumer choices have on families around the world. Sweatshop workers don’t have maternity leave, pay rates that support an acceptable standard of living, the right to say

no to overtime, or access to quality childcare. The more I learned about sweatshops and consumer choices, the more I wanted to do something about it.

Most people think of factories in developing countries when they think of sweatshops: factories where workers’ pay is less than the local cost of living, long hours with forced overtime, no protection of workers’ rights, and children working in these conditions instead of spending their days playing and learning. For people with few alternative employment opportunities, it’s hard to fight for fair pay and safe working conditions.

‘Before you finish eating your breakfast this morning, you’ve depended on half the world.

This is the way our universe is structured... We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognise this basic fact.’

Martin Luther King The United States Department of Labor defines a sweatshop as any factory that breaks one or more of the U.S. labor laws, such as not paying overtime or keeping a time card and not being paid on time. The U.S. Garment workers union, UNITE, says that any factory that does not respect

a worker’s right to form a union is a sweatshop.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has identified eight labour standards, two examples being no excessive overtime and no child labour (see website for full list)1, which should be followed by all companies. Failure to comply doesn’t necessarily mean the workplace is a sweatshop, but it does indicate that the working conditions may need to improve.

Working in sweatshops means long days: twelve hours in Indonesia, sixteen in southern China. Most workers are women, because men can’t afford to do low-paid work. Workers may need to travel a long way from home to get to the factories, away from children or elderly family who need support. Some workers live in company-owned dormitories near the factory, reducing their pay.

How do garment sewing sweatshops happen? Retailers put in orders for clothing with a manufacturer. But manufacturers often don’t make the clothing themselves. They contract factories to make it for them. The price the manufacturer offers the contracted factory isn’t always enough to pay a fair wage to the workers who actually make the garments.

But because the factory isn’t owned by the manufacturer directly, they claim no responsibility.

It isn’t even illegal for some of these factories to operate as sweatshops. Many developing countries have set up Free Trade Zones, where the labour laws do not apply. Cavite is the largest free trade zone in the Phillippines: ‘682 acres of walled-in industrial area housing 207 factories that produce goods specifically for the export market’2. It is one of fifty-two such zones in the Phillippines, employing over four hundred thousand people. In China, there are one hundred and twenty four export processing zones employing more than eighteen million people. Worldwide, there are over twenty seven million workers in around one thousand zones.

Sweatshops don’t just happen in devel-

oping countries. Manufacturers in Australia sometimes use ‘home-workers’ or ‘outworkers’ to do piece work sewing. The workers are paid per piece, not per hour.

This means workers can earn as little as $1 an hour, depending on how long it takes to sew each piece. The workers are technically sub-contractors, which means the manufacturing company is not responsible for their working conditions, and is not required to pay a minimum hourly wage as would be required for a direct employee.

In Australia, there are outworkers in the clothing, textile and footwear industries3.

They may be people who are unable to work in other industries due to issues with language skills, or access to childcare.

When workers receive a very low rate of pay, and are reliant on this low-paid work for survival, it is harder for the workers to be aware of or ensure that they have safe working conditions. They may need to work very long hours to earn enough money to get by, and they have no worker’s compensation insurance if they have an accident while working.

fair trade helps workers develop the skills they need to participate in trade on a global scale. Look for the ‘Fair Trade’ logo on product labels as proof that the product really is fair trade, and is not just borrowing the term for marketing purposes. Shops that specialise in fair trade and sweatshop free products make it easy to find brands whose manufacturing ethics have already been checked.

Australian Certified Organic products are also manufactured under fair labour laws. However, not all organic certification schemes include labour regulations in their standards. This is particularly true of textile products, where the fabric may be organic but the garments are sewn under sweatshop conditions. When buying organic clothing, look for the Australian Certified Organic logo to ensure that the clothing product, not just the fabric from which it is made, has been manufactured fairly. ‘Greenwashing’ applies to social justice issues, like fair trade, as much as to environmental issues.

When you do find a product that is fair trade or sweatshop free, tell your family ‘Overcoming poverty is not a gesture and friends about it. Most people want to of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the support a better world, but don’t have the protection of a fundamental human time to research the manufacturing ethics right, the right to dignity and a decent of the thousands of products they use each life... The steps that are needed from the day. And more people choosing ethically developed nations are clear. The first is manufactured goods means more reason ensuring trade justice.’ for all companies, not just organisations Nelson Mandela, Trafalgar Square, Lon- with a social justice philosophy, to improve their standards. don, 3 February 2005.

There are accreditation schemes for brands to prove they are sweatshop free. Try www.fairwear.org.au for a list of Australian brands. If the brand you prefer isn’t on the list, it’s worth a phone call or email to find out how their products are manufactured. The more times a company is asked these questions, the more likely it is that they will make an effort to provide their customers with evidence that their products are sweatshop free.

1 http://www.globaled.org.nz/schools/documents/ Sweatshops.pdf 2 Naomi Klein, No Logo, 2001, Flamingo, Great Britain, p 202.

3 http://www.fairwear.org.au

Even better is to choose retailers that stock fairly traded goods. This is more than just sweatshop free. Fair trade gives equity to the workers making the goods, and works to improve the practice of international trade. More than just paying a fair wage,

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Book nook

‘Book Nook’ Reviewed by Kane Ord Eltham Bookshop The bookshop proudly supports this magazine and will offer 5% off the RRP for the reviewed titles.

Chemical Free Kids: Raising Children in a Toxic World Dr Sarah Lantz

Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids Stephanie Alexander

Ecology and the Environment: Step-by-step Francois Michel

Uncollected Paul Jennings

Since its inception, the Industrial age has been praised for the technological advances it has delivered, allowing for humanity to move forward in leaps and bounds. And though the pitfalls of such development have been investigated and addressed, particularly the effects of harmful industrial chemicals on human physiology, this book is one of the few that aims at educating parents on how to avoid exposing their children to these substances.

Stephanie Alexander has been recently enjoying much praise for her latest book Kitchen Garden Companion, yet it is important to note that it all began with her work at Collingwood College developing a kitchen garden program for primary school children. Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids is the result of that program.

The current age of humanity, characterised by almost apocalyptic predications of climate change and environmental devastation, is unfortunately our historical legacy and thus entirely our responsibility. Therefore we must begin by educating our children on the beauty, wonder and vital role the environment plays in our very existence. Ecology and the Environment by Francois Michel is a great way to begin. Specifically written with younger children in mind, this book details the basic aspects of Earth’s eco-system utilising easily understandable language without ever patronising the reader.

Paul Jennings’s books are, by far, the most hilarious children’s books I have read.

Uncollected is an anthology of twenty six of his best stories. They range from mightily funny, outrageously weird to frightfully scary. They make great bedtime tales for younger children and terrific laughs for older kids. The plots take twists and turns that only a really talented author with a terrific imagination could create. None of the stories are too serious…just a lot of quirky fun tales. Many of these tales have been recreated into a television series called ‘Round the Twist’. If you enjoyed the television show then I definitely recommend buying this book.

I guarantee that this book will be greatly loved by people young and old. Uncollected makes a great asset to anyone’s book collection.

Although Dr Sarah Lantz does not come from a strictly scientific background, the book is founded on a wealth of good evidence-based sources, compiling them into one readerfriendly resource.

Joshua Books/ $32.95

Written to help children discover for themselves the joy of both organic gardening and cooking, the book combines a ‘how-to guide’ style with a standard recipe book.

Compiling around 120 unique recipes, a plethora of fun facts for curious minds and plenty of colourful photos, Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids arms kids with the knowledge needed to build, maintain and harvest a small kitchen garden and to enjoy the fruits of their labour as well.

This book is a commendable resource for parents who wish to better inform their children on the environmental issues concerning us all. An Inconvenient Truth for the under 10s.

Age Range: 7 – 100

Penguin Books/ $45 Gecko Press/ $16.99

Reviewed by Eliza Hay, 13 years page

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More books and a CD too...

The World in Six Songs Daniel J. Levitin

Daniel Levitin follows his successful (and also highly recommended) first book, This is your brain on music, with a marvellous look at how music has positively affected the development of both human nature and human societies.

His essential premise is that songs can be categorised into six types; friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love and that these types of songs (and their inextricably related movement in the form of dance) are far from being a ‘spin-off’ of human development—they are actually an intrinsic enabler.

Richly illustrated with many personal experiences, examples and interviews with the likes of Joni Mitchell and Sting this is a rare non-fiction book in the sense that it is hard to put down. It will enhance your enjoyment of music and encourage you to encourage your children in their musical explorations.

The Last Wild Witch Starhawk

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Barbara Kingsolver

Papoose Mama Kin

‘Once there was a perfect town in a perfect world. Where there were rules for everything and a right and a wrong way to do everything. And nobody ever broke the rules…..Well hardly ever.’

Join Barbara, her partner and two daughters on a journey from Tucson, Arizona and the excesses of American consumerism to the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia and self sufficiency farming. Along the way learn that the once mighty Colarado River no longer flows to the sea, that farms consume more petrochemicals than do cars and much, much more.

We get chemistry and accounting lessons from Kingsolver, and some delightful personal reminiscences and recipes from her daughter Camille.

Papoose is a beautiful, soulful EP which gives us a selection of bluesy, heartfelt songs by captivating singer/songwriter Danielle Caruana (performing as Mama Kin). Her music is personal and she seduces the listener with tales of life and love. This EP gives only a taste of Mama Kin’s soaring voice, leaving you wanting more.

Lucky for us, her highly anticipated debut album ‘Beat and Holler’ is due out mid year and if you’re lucky enough to be festival hopping this year, make sure you go and listen to Mama Kin - you won’t regret it. Check her website for live show dates and details.

Much to their parent’s dismay, at night the town’s children sneak into the forest to visit the wild Witch. The Mayor and Judge decree that this wildness must stop and send all the adults out to set things right…. or so they think.

Starhawk’s book is interesting and enjoyable for readers and listeners of all ages. Lindy Kehoe’s illustrations are inspiring and magical too.

Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Finn Saurine, 10 years

This is a very readable, rambling personal odyssey. The core message from this account of a journey to a sustainable lifestyle is that we can all help our planet by modifying our behaviour, consuming less and being satisfied with a local economy.

Reviewed by Al Foletta

Reviewed by Graham Watts

Reviewed by Jonathan O’Donnell-Young page

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On birthing Seneka Lief Lorraine’s story

words Lorraine Austin-Hannaford Mother, grandmother, artist, teacher. photos Seneka Cohen We know regular readers love hearing about Seneka’s tales of midwifery, both at home and in hospital, so she will be sharing more of these with us this year but when we heard the story of how she herself came into

before dawn i wake to the sound of the mopoke owl calling. i climb out of bed. my waters have broken. pain comes low in my belly. i feel calm. out into the night i go. grass wet with dew, sky indigo blue, stars like diamonds, silver moon. i walk through the orchard past the old pear trees, touch the raspberry bush. Lucy the sheep nudges me, Gretchan the goat makes a sound, Cymba our other goat calls out loud, she is ready to be milked. i pass them all. down into the cool gully i go. tree ferns, maidenhair, mountain ash, smooth stones under foot. i listen to the creek, the sound of water makes me feel calm. i whisper. i feel strong and i am ready.

resist asking her mum

i sit down to wait for the dawn. watch the light change, veil after veil lifting. another pain sharp and sudden.

a beautiful birth story – thanks Lorraine.

the pain comes strong now, in my belly, in my back. i lay in the bath, smell bergamot, lemon balm, rosemary, lavender. i listen to early morning bird song. breeze through an open window. pain comes stronger and stronger. and i am ready. bedroom: everything prepared, flowers on the table, fire going. hand crocheted baby blanket; spiral of love from Lanny. hand knitted singlets from my mother. jug of water. scissors to cut the cord. blanket warming in the oven. pain comes i lay on the floor. i remember to breathe, i have practised, i know what to do. the strength of the pain surprises me. i look at the image on our wall, a baby crowning, mother laughing. i feel supported by all the

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i visualise women giving birth, there is no end to faces coming into my mind. they are telling me i can do this. i breathe stronger than the pain. i call out. i know i can give birth to this baby. i get up, walk around, crawl on the floor, squat down, hold my partner’s hands. the room is so full of breathing and pain. i tell my partner to breathe for me. i cry out. i can feel the baby, the crown. i pant, i breathe the way i have practised. the pain is stronger than ever, i cry out and our baby is born. i lift her gently, all slippery onto my chest, she doesn’t cry. clear eyes looking into mine, blinking in the candlelight. rosy lips. golden skin. i touch her tummy still connected by the umbilical cord to the placenta inside of me. i start to cry, holding her close, skin on skin. i am overwhelmed with love for this baby. morning star shines through the window. dawn is breaking. my partner goes to call my mother to let her know we are okay. i lay in the quietness. my baby has her first drink, she knows what to do. i feel the placenta coming. it flops onto the sheets. i can rest now. sleep comes to us both. her soft warm body laying on my chest, her hand in mine.

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i walk slowly back to the house up the hill, out of the gully slipping on the wet leaves, picking herbs for a bath. i wake my partner to light a fire.

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pain comes again strong long pain, my partner supports me. i need my hand knitted, over-theknee socks, my legs are shaking and my feet are cold. Cody our galah flies through the open window lands on the bed post and watches me with a kind eye.

the pain comes in my lower back.

the world, we couldn’t to retell it, as it’s such

mothers before me.

Seneka’s tales

Midwife: with Woman

words Seneka Cohen artwork Narissa Butler Seneka Cohen, works part time as a midwife in a small maternity unit and also independently in a group practice in Melbourne, Victoria.

She is mother to two adventurous boys who are eight and six and has a great love of the natural world, other cultures, travelling, organic gardening, and the community in which she lives.

…In response

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strong commitment to attend homebirths within a framework that I consider safe. Beyond the importance of a relationship based on continuity of care and the presence of trust between the woman, her family and the midwives, safety for me involves the presence of two registered midwives skilled in neonatal resuscitation and maternal emergencies, as well as the equipment necessary to carry out such care. I don’t question the importance of a woman’s ability to know herself and her ability I do not wish to remove or disassemble this perfect to birth but I question the unpredictable nature of picture, but I wonder deeply about the ‘what if’s’. birth and the fine line it traverses with death.

What if I had not breathed, would then my young I understand why for millennia women have opted surfer father all of twenty two have bent down and to have wise women and witches—and those breathed into me? Or would my mother, young savvy with herbs and the human body and/or and trusting and seemingly profoundly present spirit world—hold the space for her and her family for an eighteen year old have had the ability to whilst birth takes her on the journey that it will. find a place where she could both birth and then resuscitate her own babe? And what if this rather This privilege—to be present for women to birth in the comfort of their own homes—is what lies unfast birth had been followed by heavy bleeding? der threat from July next year. If only more people (Although in my experience, hemorrhage is more could witness the exquisite gift women are when likely to occur when birth is induced or augmented). Would they have wished they had had a mid- they birth safely and undisturbed….

I read again this beautiful story. I sit as woman and mother and marvel at the abundance of trust and surrender. I sit as babe and feel and smell and taste this world to which I have come, so soft, so held and peaceful…how lucky I am. Then I sit as midwife and my mind swirls with a million questions. Isn’t this the way birth is meant to be, a private moment, between life and what was before, a grand yet humble entrance into the world?

wife there to hold the space, to rub my mother’s uterus and give her medicine? Well in actual fact, my mother had wished for a midwife but no one would attend her at home, so the best she could find was a doctor in the local town who would see her during the pregnancy and confirm that both she and the baby were well. Kindly he visited after she had birthed and checked us both over.

I sit and think about my own practice, and my page

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Life, death and the whole shebang page

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words

Carrie’s chook died on Friday night.

Lyndel Caffrey

Ruby—Too many cuts— lost too much blood.

photo Rachel Watts Lyndel Caffrey lives in Brunswick. Her poetry and short stories have been published in various journals including Southerly, Poetrix, and Vignette press.

She has written for newmatilda.com and Melbourne’s Child. In 2008 her story ‘My father’s gumboots’ featured on ABC Radio National. This year she’s been reworking her novel, Homing, which was highly commended in the 2008 ABC Fiction Award.

Carrie painted on the headstone made out of a cardboard box.

We found Ruby standing sadly in the garden late Friday afternoon. She’d been left behind by her sisters who were fighting over veggie scraps in their yard. She had a cut to one of her legs. A classic cat’s injury, the vet told us later. I sat her on my knees and offered her tiny pecks of cool water, and she rallied a little, but by four in the morning she was stiff and cold in the hutch we set up for invalid chooks on the back verandah.

At sunrise Matilda, my three-year-old was bouncing around the bedroom asking if we could go and check on Ruby. She has a patchy understanding of the finality of death, but she had seen a dead chook at a friend’s house, so it wasn’t too hard to explain to her that Ruby was not going to get better. She hopefully suggested a vet or a doctor, then went off with her sisters to take a look. She came back to say that Ruby had ‘dead eyes’ now. Elena my eight year old was crestfallen and a bit teary, but Carrie, my soft hearted but practical six year old, snuggled up in bed with me.

She had thought it over in bed the night before, and had decided that if Ruby died, she would get a new chook and name it after a gemstone like Ruby. After a little more thought, she settled on Moonstone. An hour or so later I had three little girls dressed, brushed and on the way to the Victoria Market to choose a new chook.

There are not many chooks that could live up to the name Moonstone, but Carrie found one. A perky white bantam with yellow legs, Moonstone was bravely poking her beak through the wire into the next door neighbour’s water tub while her tawny coloured sister pecked at any of the much larger red hens in that cage who thought they had prior rights to their own water. We promptly christened her Tigereye and bought the two of them. Next stop was the back of our favourite vegetable stall where we collected a big bag of lettuce scraps. Then we took turns carrying Moonstone and Tigereye in their string wrapped cardboard box to the car.

Back home Moonstone and Tigereye settled in easily with our two remaining egglayers Liliana and Snowpea and our handsome rooster Redjacket. We emptied the lettuce leaves into the yard and they tackled them with enthusiasm. They were so much at home that we didn’t bother to lock them up in the coop. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and the children spent most of it watching the new hens grazing under the fruit trees.

how she had used her initiative and flown the coop! We searched the garden and peered over fences without success. No white feathers, no guilty looking cats, no Moonstone. Carrie, so steady and calm the day before, sobbed her heart out. As for me, losing two pets in two days both belonging to the same child is extreme, even by my standards. When we had both calmed down my thoughts turned to Ruby. In the excitement yesterday, her funeral had been delayed. I got the shovel and Carrie took me to the spot in the garden where she wanted Ruby to be buried.

I’d barely turned the first sod when our next door neighbour Frank poked his head over the fence.

‘Hey, you chook breeders,’ he yelled, ‘I’ve got this little white thing running around my garden. Is it yours?’

Frank has some experience with birds. He’s been breeding cockatiels in his back yard forever. And you could never accuse him of a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to neighbourhood emergencies. By the time we arrived in his backyard, he was chasing Moonstone between the begonias with a long handled, pint-sized butterfly net.

Moonstone, to her credit, was looking pretty calm and collected as she hopped from the edge of the path onto his outdoor table.

You know the old saying about leading horses to water. The same goes for catching chooks.

With Frank waving his butterfly net, me spreading out my arms and the three year old jumping up and down on the spot, I was ready for a long campaign. That’s when Carrie, still in her pyjamas, stepped quietly up behind Moonstone, her hands hovering above her wings. Moonstone looked at me, glanced back at Carrie and made up her mind. Carrie took one more step forward, reached down, and picked her up.

Ruby had a good funeral. The kids collected flowers and birdseed, I picked some of her favourite nettles, Carrie pushed in the dirt, and we didn’t bother with speeches. Afterwards I brought the cardboard box and poster paints out to the back yard. Once Carrie had finished working on the brightly coloured headstone, the three of them got really busy, making cars with cardboard boxes and paper plates, then using scissors, sticky tape, paint, feathers, pipe cleaners and anything else they could find, they prepared an elaborate party for their toys.

Meanwhile, over near the wattle tree in the afternoon sunshine where he and the hens spend so much time, Redjacket scratched around on his own, making odd little clucking noises as he gave Ruby, his beautiful red hen—his fine fat egg layer—the eulogy that we had neglected.

The next morning, Moonstone was gone. Somepage

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Introducing MAGA Maiden, Mother, Maga, Crone

words & images Jane Hardwicke Col-

The four phase feminine way:

lings

Rite of Passage Life Season Jane is a mother, step

Birth

Maiden

mother and grand-

Childbirth

mother in the making.

She is married to Paul and lives in the South-

Rite of Passage Menarche

Age

Corresponding Earth Season

say 0 – 25

Spring

Mother

say 25 – 50

Summer

Menopause

Maga

say 50 – 70

Autumn/Fall

Retirement

Crone

say 70 – 100+

Winter

Death

ern Highlands of NSW. Jane is an Independent Midwife and has been attending homebirths since 1984.

Jane teaches workshops on the wisdom of the cycles, to women, high school students (boys and girls) and other groups. www.moonsong.com. au janecollings@bigpond. com.au

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During a recent visit to North America, I spent a weekend with my mentor and friend, Cedar Barstow1, in Boulder Colorado. The Rocky Mountain air was hot and clean, new baby birds chirped as they flew for the first time. While my sons slept in, Cedar and I sat on her back deck overlooking her beautiful garden in full bloom, catching up after several years apart.

the world’. She described herself and her Maga sisters as being at a level of competence within their self expression or careers. They were enjoying freedom from the intense responsibilities and demands of motherhood or the career climb. For some, no more children has meant a chance to give back in a way that there wasn’t space or time for before. For others, like Cedar at sixty, it is ‘too late to start another career, my path is set.’ Their Cedar and I spoke about Rites of Passage that occur at the beginning and end of each life season unique contributions to the larger world are possible now and are motivated by what calls them. and she told me about the ceremony that her Cedar described being less social than she was spiritual community performed for her and other in her Mother season, but very involved in her women to mark their menopause and transition community. Mothers and Magas have an active from Mother to Maga. and direct community influence. The Crones, on Maga? the other hand, influence from a well-developed ‘I’m no Crone yet’, she said. ‘I’m out there in the presence and ‘hold’ from the outer edges. world earning my living and I have much to give.

Maga is the autumn season of a woman’s life, the I’m not wondering what I’m going to do with my harvest. The Crone is the winter season, the sealife anymore, I’m doing it! My life experience and son of retirement, life review and letting go. She the wisdom it has brought me provide a stable philosophises, tells stories, prays, gardens, gathers and rich foundation.’ Cedar went on, ‘I have arwith other Crones. rived at my Self in this life season. I’m not trying to prove myself and so I’m now driven by a desire to The natural fertility cycle of a woman’s life defines use my gifts and passions to give back. The name these life seasons; menopause ends the Mother season and starts the Maga season. When a Maga came from one of the women in our com2 munity, Sylvia Keepers . An apt and potent image, woman arrives at her Maga season as Mother Nature intended, her children are older, well into Maga was intended as the feminine version of their teens or having left home as young adults.

Magus—the wise man, magician’.

Her children need her less and their process of Interesting, ‘arriving at my Self’; this phrase relates separation has probably already begun. The to Dr Christiane Northrup’s statement in her book turmoil of this separation process combined with The Wisdom of Menopause likening the symptoms the labour pains of menopause truly does give the of peri-menopause to labour—with the birth this woman the opportunity to give birth to a new vertime being giving birth to yourself. sion of herself. Her role as Mother is very different Cedar described starting out her Maga phase now: her children need her less and may reject as a time of ‘integration and pulling together her as part of their individuation process. How this the biggest pieces of my life work, my offering to

transitional period is negotiated and supported by family, friends and society will determine the way she comes through this rite of passage and who she will be on the other side.

The negative Maga is the ‘empty nester’, she is a woman who has lost her sense of self as mother and nothing else comes.

Her life may feel empty, depressing and without meaning. She could, with this mindset, become a premature Crone— withdrawing from her life. Or, she could hear with ‘the ears of her heart’ or her ‘third ear or intuition’ (Jeannine Parvati Baker1) for what has ‘heart and meaning’ (Angeles Arrien2) for her and direct her still very strong and potent energy wherever she chooses. Many women in their fifties pick up careers and interests from their Maiden phase that may have gone ‘part-time’ during their mothering. Some women start new ones. They have time now, focussed time. Cedar described it as ‘finding a motivation more powerful and more effective than the will’. She calls it an organic and heart centred motivation that is much more pleasurable and sensual than the will. She said, ‘We need to surrender to this powerful force like we surrendered to the birth force’.

community and society. She can, as Cedar explained, ‘Hear and tell the truth without shame or blame and stand in her strength while staying in heart’. Perhaps the essence of the drive to give back comes from all that was ‘given’ to the Mother—a way for her to give thanks.

Becoming the Grandmother, she cares about the world her grandchildren will be born into and does all she can to help it be a safe, sustainable place. The Grandmothers of times past held the final say on such matters as war. If this were still the case, the world might be a different place now...

The responsibility: the Maga woman is needed as a strong conscience for the

Caroline, in her early forties, feels the Maga phase beginning to affect her, ‘I am less social and less interested in what’s going on in the social world. I feel that I make more sense as an older person than I did in my twenties’. Caroline has four children between five and thirteen, all were born in her thirties. Using the framework of the Four Phase Feminine Way, she is able to understand her internal struggle in juggling her children and her needs. ‘Whilst my advancing age is leading me to begin the inward turn and to focus elsewhere, my small children keep dragging me out of that place and at times I find that very hard. The pulls are equal and opposite.’

Maiden ~ carefree, Mother ~ responsibility, Maga ~ carefree responsibility, Crone ~ responsibly carefree!

The Maga season seems to be a modern privilege and responsibility.

The privilege: Our lives today are ‘cushy’ compared to even one hundred years ago. Machines have replaced many of the tasks that would have taken up most of our time to just survive. Cars, supermarkets and ovens have substantially changed the time it takes to get a meal on the table. We go to the gym for the exercise that we would have had from daily life tasks. In some respects, this takes meaning away from our lives and in other respects it gives us freedom to use our time and energy in unlimited ways. This then leads to…

lip (for some women) it’s about six years before her monthly bleeding pattern starts to change.

Jeannine Parvati Baker Since my return to Australia I have shared this Maga tale with women’s circles and with many of my friends and the prevailing response is ‘YES!’, ‘This makes sense, this feels right’. ‘A whole new chapter in my life!’

As with all transitions there is no one point when everything changes, like the seasons the change is gradual not instant. Peri-menopause can take anywhere from two to thirteen years. Once black hairs start appearing on a woman’s top

At seventy, Barbara feels the inward draw. She literally stays inside more, simply because it’s more comfortable. She moves slowly from where she sits and knits, either dolls for great grandchildren or hats for the earthquake stricken people of Pakistan, to the kitchen. She prepares the meals, most impressed with her use of every part of the ingredient; she hates waste. On her daily visit to the chicken pen, she pulls the weeds from the garden for their food. She counts the ducks and notices how many more baby rabbits there are.

She speaks her mind, she cries, she feels angry at injustices and joyous about her grandchildren’s exploits. She tells me of her grandchildren (my children), ‘You can’t protect them from themselves’. These are wise words. The crone speaketh.

1 Jeannine Parvati Baker, 2004, www. birthkeeper.com 2 Angeles Arrien, The Four Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Healer, Teacher, Visionary.1993 Harper Collins

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Sugar and spice and all things nice Putting sugar in its place

words Dr Sandra Parsons artwork Sarah Brown Sandra now lives in central Melbourne after leaving Perth three years ago. She works at a wellness medicine practice; a practice that seeks to integrate western approaches with complementary and alternative medicine and Sandra’s main focus is on nutritional and environmental medicine. She loves swimming in the ocean, bush walking, travelling and singing.

Sugar is a very emotive word and is often associated with experiences of comfort, treats and nurture; a home-made cake, a table full of colourful ‘delights’ at children’s parties, take away with friends, chocolate, the list goes on...The word itself has connotations of love with derivatives such as, ‘sugar pie’, ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie’ being used as terms of endearment. It is difficult to believe that something we enjoy or even love may not be good for us. How can something that tastes so good and seems so natural be bad for us?

The effect of an addiction to sugar is the focus of much research and results are showing that the consumption of sugar is perhaps the most harmful thing we can be doing to ourselves in terms of our present and future health. It has been noted that the foods we like the most and become addicted to are often the foods that are not good for our health and that we may be allergic to.

As a species we are still genetically huntergatherers, as our ancestors were years ago. Our gene pool has altered very little in the last million years, perhaps no more than 0.5%, however our diet today has become radically different from any other mammal on the planet. Originally as hunter-gatherers sugar was not easy to come by and thus was highly prized. Many foods such as fruit and honey were seasonal, limited and hard to find. Sugar was such a small part of our diet in those days that the body was designed to try and maintain our glucose level—a form of simple sugar—in the blood for as long as possible. Sugar is used by the body for the metabolism of red blood cells because they, unlike the other cells in our bodies can’t metabolise fats. Sugar is therefore very important but only in small amounts. In comparison to our ancestors the amount of sugar in our diets has sky-rocketed.

We all eat far too much sugar and part of the reason for this is that sugar is often hidden in foods that are considered ‘normal’ in our modern diet. For instance, most fruit juices contain vast amounts of sugar and very little actual juice; they are often no different from fizzy drinks. Alcohol

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is a major source of sugar, as are carbohydrates such as cakes, biscuits, pizza, bread and pasta which all break down in our bodies to simple sugars. There can be a lot of sugar in dairy and low fat products and there are chemical ‘fake’ sugars added to many ‘weight-loss’ foods. Certain fruits can be high in sugar, as are dried fruits. However in a balanced diet sugar in food isn’t such a problem, it is just something to be aware of if you think your diet may favour foods that are high in sugar.

Dr Nicolas Perricone MD1, a New York dermatologist and author, believes sugar is a major cause of inflammation in the body leading to many chronic diseases, an acceleration of the ageing process and mental deterioration. For instance, consider the following ‘healthy breakfast’: orange juice, a bowl of cereal, skim milk, a low fat bran muffin, some fat free margarine and coffee. Sounds good doesn’t it? Here is what it is really doing to you. The juice causes a burst of inflammation in the body as it floods the bloodstream with sugar.

In turn this causes a sharp rise in insulin levels, which not only accelerates the ageing process but also increases the risk of heart disease, cancer and memory loss. The coffee also increases insulin levels and stimulates cortisol, the stress hormone, which causes the abdomen to store fat and is also toxic to brain cells. Both the cereal and muffin rapidly convert to sugar in the blood stream and raise insulin levels. The cereal has as much sugar as a chocolate bar but the chocolate is less inflammatory because it contains fat. Fat retards the absorption of sugar and therefore slows down the production of insulin. So this typical low-fat breakfast will store body fat faster than eating junk food and it is also deficient in the protein necessary for total body repair. Also, the absence of good fats can cause other problems such as depression, heart disease and dry skin. Another useful book that explains this relationship is Good Health in the 21st Century by Dr. Carole Hungerford2.

An interesting article about food addiction appeared in The Times3 newspaper in June 2009. It explored the idea that some food products being produced now are so connected with our appe-

tite centres in the brain that we literally won’t be able to stop eating them. David Kessler, former head of the US Food and Drug Administration, has warned that snack cereals and ready-made foods (which are once again all very high in sugar) were devised by food scientists to act on the reward centres of the human brain the same way that tobacco does. He went on to say that food manufacturers are seeking to trigger our ‘bliss points’ when people eat certain products leaving them hungry for more. At the optimal point certain foods can stimulate a person’s appetite and override normal feelings of being full.

Children with allergies and hay fever will often benefit remarkably from a reduction of sugar in their diets. Intolerance to sugar may cause prolonged diarrhoea after a viral gastro-enteritis.

Research recently documented from John Hopkins University4 has also shown that sugar can lead to an increase in the incidence of many types of cancer. Sugar is particularly harmful for young children as it depletes the immune system for up to twelve hours after being consumed, reducing neutrophils and lymphocytes—white blood cells—by at least a third and making children more prone to an infection. How many times do children wake up the morning after a birthday party with a cold or flu? Sugar is also a major component in the development of acne in people of all ages and children with hyperactivity disorders, autism and asperger’s syndrome may also benefit from a low sugar diet. Children are much calmer and more relaxed when they have a steady blood sugar level throughout the day, the best way to accomplish this is to eat more whole foods—those altered as little as possible from their natural state.

hydrates, although they are a more complex form of carbohydrates, as are whole grains, both of which produce a more sustained and even blood sugar level. It is best to reduce our intake of such carbohydrates as breads, cereals, pizza and pasta and if possible to have reduced gluten or gluten free grains, in our diet in favour of proteins and good fats and oils such as nuts, coconut oil, fish oil and flaxseed oil.

We often self medicate with comfort foods when we are feeling low or sad and children can pick up on and follow these unhealthy patterns. I believe we need to start thinking of our food intake more as a fuel for the body and not use eating as a form of entertainment or comfort.

1 Dr Nicolas Perricone MD, The Perricone Prescription, 2002, William Morrow and The Wrinkle Cure, 2001, Grand Central Publishing. http://www.perriconemd.com/ 2 Dr. Carole Hungerford, Good Health in the 21st Century, 2008, Scribe Publications 3 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/ article6591291.ece 4 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/ cID/1

So what is a healthy amount of sugar to have in our diet? Ideally it would be as little as possible. Most of our nutritional needs are met by our intake of fats and proteins. Carbohydrates are often wrongly given a privileged place on the food pyramid—human beings can survive on very few—because of course carbohydrates are simply broken down into sugars in our bodies. Interestingly, we often forget that vegetables are carbopage

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Kitchen cupboard remedies The healing properties of calendula words Jacqui Fee artwork Julia Symons Jacqui Fee is a Naturopath and Herbalist in Melbourne CBD and Eltham. One of her greatest clinical rewards is in helping individuals and couples to prepare for, conceive and produce happy, healthy children. In addition, she has a great passion for teaching and mentoring naturis currently writing a

of the most enjoyable to make and most frequently used is Calendula cream. Many readers will know that Calendula cream is the bee’s knees in nappy rash treatment, but you may not know how to identify a cream containing good, therapeutic quality ingredients, and how easy and satisfying it is to make yourself. Once stocked up, you may also find out how marvellous Calendula cream is This satisfaction and pride is amplified now, as I as an on-hand gift for the generous family and support my five-month-old daughter through the friends who help out in such a busy and astoundlittle ailments that she encounters. To know that most of the things I use to treat her are simple and ing time in life. effective remedies made in the kitchen, either from This is a remedy that uses quality natural ingredimy garden or herbal stockpile, fills me with so ents for both the therapeutic aspect and the base much pleasure. I also know that I am supporting of the cream. It is actually more like an ointment, her immune system with gentle organic preparaas the consistency is quite thick, so that it forms tions and thereby not exposing her to unnecessary a barrier on the skin for rashes etc. There is one chemicals. ingredient that is not natural and that is emulsifyWhilst I was pregnant, I made use of the last trimester’s nesting instincts and stocked up on many of the herbal remedies I thought I may use. One

ing wax. This helps the therapeutic ingredients penetrate the skin well, however it may be omitted and you can use more beeswax in its place.

professional course in fertility.

Calendula Cream Ingredients 250ml almond oil

ula officinalis flowers, 4 cups of dried calend finely chopped 25gms beeswax x 20gms emulsifying wa ter wa e 50mls ros ract 5 drops citrus seed ext min E (contents only) 1000iu capsule of vita

Method

ss ula flowers in a stainle Place the dried calend the almond oil until it steel bowl and pour on Put the bowl on a gently just covers the flowers. or and heat for two hours, simmering water bath onasi omes crisp. Stir occ until the calendula bec out to burn the herb or run ally but be careful not of simmering water! muslin cloth and return Strain the herbs through

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l over the simmering the infused oil to the bow wax swax and emulsifying water bath. Add the bee e cold water in the sink and melt gently. Put som in that. Whilst whisking and cool the bowl of oils and ter, citrus seed extract gently, add the rose wa am cre E capsule. As the contents of the vitamin tents ilised jars with the con thickens, pour into ster d. and date clearly labelle m thoroughly and place To sterilise jars, clean the s. hot oven for 20 minute them in a moderately will am then use. The cre Wait until they cool and keep for a year.

Instructions

ns, skin for rashes, infectio Can be used on clean to affected part once to cuts and eczema. Apply three times daily. ledge Kate O’Dwyer of I would like to acknow rapies, Kalorama Natural The bal inspirations. for this recipe, and her

business as usual

opathic students, and

I have always enjoyed the earthy satisfaction of making herbal medicines from home and seeing the colourful preparations waiting for use in the cupboard. It brings me great joy to care for my unwell loved ones with these remedies and know that all of the ingredients are natural and therapeutically potent.

HKO_Barefoot9x7outlined.ai 18/04/2009 9:07:53 PM

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Institutionalising division and injustice in our education system words Dr. Micheal Loughnane artwork & images Eliza Hay Michael has taught English, English Literature and Religious Education in Catholic schools in Victoria for the last 20 years.

Michael has just moved to Tasmania and despite arguing strongly against sending his children to private schools, three of his four children will attend Catholic schools there.

One of the things that is very difficult for us to grasp as parents, is the idea that every child is just as precious as mine; that every parent—including the poorest and most powerless—feels about their child the way I do about mine. This is the heart of the problem with private education. It institutionalises and normalises the erroneous notion that my child is more special than any other child.

However, it is hard to bear the reality of this notion so we rationalise it by saying things like, ‘I have a duty as a parent to do the very best for my child.’

Really? At the expense of someone else’s child?

The reality is that when I send my child to a private school I am saying that ‘my child has a right to a better education than my neighbour’s child.’ In truth, this is a natural by-product of a meritocratic, individualistic capitalist structure. It boils down to simple economics: ‘I am wealthier, therefore I have a right to be able to use that financial advantage to buy a better education for my child’. This is a rational and intelligent argument if you believe that you are an island entirely of yourself, but if you believe yourself to be a member of a ‘society’ or ‘community,’ there is something fundamentally unfair and divisive about it. Private schooling may appear good for the child who receives it, but it is a disaster for the society of which that child is a member. This kind of exclusive self-selection (paraded as ‘choice’) has led to what some call a ‘social apartheid,’ where society becomes tracked and segregated along class lines.

Just how unhealthy this is for all of us has been demonstrated by an extensive epidemiological study carried out by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The results of their study are published in The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better1. It demonstrates what we have always intuitively understood: that healthier societies are more equal and unhealthy societies are more unequal. They sum up their analysis of the evidence by stating that ‘if you want to know why one country does better or worse than another [on a range of social issues, including education], the first thing to look at is the extent of inequality’. They demonstrate how much worse things

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are in places where there is a wide disparity of income—places such as the USA, Britain, Portugal and Australia—and conversely, how much better things are in places where there is a small income difference—places such as Sweden, Norway, Finland and Japan. It comes as somewhat of a surprise to find that Australia is about the fourth most unequal developed country, as we tend to perceive of it as being a place where ‘a fair go’ is the dominant value or impulse.

The proof of the inequality lies in the statistics. In Australia, federal funding for private schools is set to increase from $5.8 billion to $7.5 billion over the next five years; funding to public schools will rise from $3.1 billion to $3.4 billion over the next five years. We are creating future social disasters for ourselves by taking this approach. If only we could learn from the Nordic countries and fund an excellent public system there would be little need to feed parental fear for their children, by scaring them with irrational apprehension about the destructive scarring and low scores their child will receive in state schools.

So, here’s the choice: parents can scrimp and save and work longer hours to send their child to an exclusive private school where they will receive ‘a proper education’ and where they will have the very best of everything laid on; where they will be reinforced in the view that they are somehow more ‘special’ and they will imbibe an overweening self-confidence. Or, the child can attend a local public school where they will rub shoulders with all sorts of people, including the poor and disenfranchised of our world and thereby learn to be more open, compassionate and understanding of ‘the real world’; and there’s the added bonus of not having to slave long hours to pay extortionate fees so there is more time to spend with the family.

One of the arguments most frequently put forward by those in favour of private education is the

religious freedom argument. ‘We have a right to have our child educated in the faith tradition of our choice’. True. But this could be done without creating a divisive public/private system. Many independent religious schools are, as Cath Deveny puts it, ‘divisive, discriminatory, and implicitly teach children that some kids deserve nicer playgrounds than others.’ This is rather ironic, as Christianity in particular, is meant to promote a more just and equitable social order.

On the other hand, however, too many public schools are antipathetic and sometimes downright hostile to religious belief, so that they end up with their own brand of religious bigotry by communicating a kind of anti-religious exclusivity, where those who subscribe to a faith tradition are discriminated against. This is regrettable, and is one of the reasons many parents turn to private education.

So what have we (my wife and I) done? We have four children and all of them have until now been educated in state schools. We are of course subjective, but they are, in our view, wonderful people who have a strong sense of self and are pretty committed to learning. Sometimes we have been frustrated with the system; they have at times been taught by second-rate teachers and they have had to contend with some rather unsavoury characters. But they rub shoulders with all races and all classes and they have learned to be tolerant of difference. They have come to understand the way our society is in a way that they would not have come to understand if they had received an exclusive private education, where they would have only rubbed shoulders with their own type and class.

In the end it boils down to this: why should my child get singular advantages over other children?

To me such a claim of preference and privilege subverts a very precious democratic principle: that we are all equal, and consequently should all have equal access to fundamental basics like health and education.

system. There is no doubt that sending a child to a private school means they will make all the ‘right’ contacts and hang out with the ‘right’ people, and thereby improve their material prospects. They will also learn the ‘right’ way to speak as well as the ‘right’ tastes in music, art, travel and entertainment. Very seductive!

But all this comes at a huge cost—not just financial cost, but spiritual and emotional as well.

There is something stunting about being educated in a rarefied world where I come to associate only with those who are ‘rich like me’. Better, in my view, to show confidence in children that they are sufficiently resilient and mature to be able to respond creatively, intelligently and resourcefully to the challenges that being with all shades and classes will inevitably throw up. And you know what? If children develop good discipline, and learn to love learning, they will achieve just as well in the state school system as they will at the expensive private school.

If we are to reverse the invidious and divisive trend Despite having argued against private education, I that has been worsening in Australia over the am very understanding of parents who make such past twenty years, we will have to invest heavily in our public school system and ask those who wish a choice. We are, after all, subjected to relentto have their child privately educated to pay the less propaganda about the ‘failure’ of the public full financial and social cost of such an exclusive system and the wonderful merits of the private choice. This political course is not only better for the poor, it is better for the rich as well. We are all connected.

1 Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better, 2009, Penguin UK page

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At home... words & image Maria Lerch Maria Lerch is mother to two boys, aged ten and seven. six. They They livelive in in rural Victoria.

Once upon a time there was a little tree, beautifully strong, reaching up to the sky, embracing the earth below and ready to grow. Along came a human who saw the need to build a huge fence around the tree, ‘There!’ he said. ‘Just a little help to keep you protected from all harm; just you ignore the rest of the world.’

‘Really?’ thought the little tree as it gave up its dream of times with the roos, stories from the echidna and dances with the goanna.

Then the human reappeared, placed a solid straight object next to the tree and tied the little trunk firmly to it. ‘There!’ he said. ‘I am helping you; now you may become straight and tall as a tree ought to be.’

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‘Really?’ thought the tree and decided it had better grow in the right direction to fit in.

Then one day the wind blew by, singing quietly to himself and the tree heard his whisper so deep within, it could not help but feel happy and strong. The wind’s song changed into a howling storm and ripped through everything in its path...tearing out the fence and the post; allowing the tree to dance its wild dance.

This time when the human returned he only noticed that one tree amongst many grew slightly to one side, with branches wild and strong, dancing in the breeze, though not with quite as much fruit as the others...or was there? The fruit certainly looked big and juicy. The tree froze as the human got closer...and then...the human began to smile, being reminded of something long ago...and he let the tree be.

Imagine the tree is a child, the fence, the post and the pruning is an educational institution (any one will do) providing the ‘support’ for the

I believe that the little tree and indeed our children—if given the opportunity—are very capable of growing into mighty, strong and upright magnificence, without all the above mentioned props. As long as the child’s life is full of real and rich experiences of course!

For me, books, desks and often teachers are lacking the enthusiastic, alive ability to provide real life experiences for our children. Instead there seems to be this need to re-create and produce information—and lots of it—about the things the children ‘ought to know’, even if the children have not necessarily asked for it or shown any interest in it.

Children are vulnerable, like our little tree and believe we have their best interests at heart; they totally trust us. I often question what I am doing with that trust...and hope you question too, no matter what educational choices you have made; why are they being taught this? What are they learning? Is their natural love of learning still alive and kicking? Questioning is a great start; having the mindfulness to question the education and the institutions that provide it. Do they serve your child? Are they bringing out your child’s full potential? What is the information they are so profusely ‘cramming’ into the children, even if disguised in creativity and play? Who decides what is important? What do you think is of true importance and are your children getting enough of that?

There are many more questions—hopefully you will have your own. Mostly I check daily whether my children are happy!

The tree needs rain, sun, healthy soil and creatures just as our children need real, inspiring and alive experiences that move them. Then they naturally learn, for learning is a natural thing; children need our trust in this...like they so willingly give us theirs.

‘The

only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.’

Einstein

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‘Really?’ thought the tree. But it got the message and grew as straight and tall as a tree could be.

As it was busy growing, the human returned, began cutting the reaching branches here and there and explained, ‘There! I am helping you once again, now you know which direction to grow in and how to fit in with the rest of this orchard (let’s say it was a plum tree).

child to grow and trimming back certain qualities within the child, when necessary.

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

This house is our home words Lucy Dawson (not her real name)

photo Sally Koster Lucy Dawson is a self appointed relationship guru, with a passion for all things sexual.

She lives in inner city Melbourne with her lucky husband and gorgeous children.

She stays at home by day and is a freelance writer & researcher by

column

night.

We all know the story of the three little pigs—the age-old tale of doing the best you can, with time and energy paying off in the end, creating security and stability for all and sundry. So here we are, my family and I, living in a house made of sticks (well, weatherboards) and slowly, slowly, the proverbial big bad wolf is getting us down. The lack of insulation in winter makes it feel like there is a wolf huffing and puffing our house down, the creaking of the floorboards due to old wooden stumps, the badly positioned house which catches full summer sun and none of the winter rays.

It has all the principles of NON energy-efficient house design.

We had our house assessed for a Green Loan, and the assessor said we qualified in every department!

So why haven’t we moved? The usual suspects—money, mortgage repayments, too hard basket—and sentimentality too.

I love this house; my daughter has spent her whole life here, we can walk everywhere we want to go, or catch the train for further afield. I can wander down to gorgeous parkland not far from our house, and grab a coffee at the local cafe on the corner. I love that I know the community around me, and know the shop keepers by name. My friends

drop in because they can, and our children all know each other so well, that we hardly see them once they disappear into the garden.

We don’t live in a big house.

In fact, I visited my sister’s gorgeous new (old) house in the outer stretches of Melbourne yesterday and was amazed by the size of her daughter’s new bedroom. It was almost as big as our entire kitchen/ dining/living area! I have often said that I long for more space, to just have that little bit more room outside for the kids to ride their bikes, or plant our own little forest—and I still want that—but on returning home, I was struck by how much I love the ‘littleness’ of our house. We can hear what everyone is doing in the house (sometimes to our detriment!), we can look out the window and see our kids playing; our little family unit is so well held in our house.

There is such security in our house that I find it easy to overlook the environmental nightmare that it is.

As we hung the Christmas decorations on the tree, that we had ventured out and found in the outer northern suburbs (environmental weed removal!), I felt very lucky to really have a ‘home’.

We’re living in the house of sticks, which probably would blow over in strong winds, but it’s our connection to the space that keeps it together, not the physical materi-

als. It’s the little things that make our house a home—the fact that it feels like it’s giving you a hug when you walk in. It’s rarely clean, there is often no food in the cupboards, but we make sure that everyone is always welcome here and there is never a bad time to drop in. The time and energy that has gone into this house on a non-physical level has been the factor that has paid off for me. We are going to utilise that Green Loan though and get some evacuated solar tubes for hot water, some more water tanks, some wall insulation and convert to become fully solar powered; our actual house is going to get some love too!

So the next step from this place?

We’re going back to the first pig’s idea of building a house with straw—who needs bricks? The environmental benefits of straw bale are great—they are easy to keep cool in summer and warm in winter, we will be able to help build it (so we get to put the love into our house from the first stages) and straw-bale buildings use less embodied energy to construct than many other building materials.

All we need to do now is find the right place to build, find some more money and then get building....

Until then, there’s nowhere I’d rather call home. page

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On being a separated Grandad One grandfather’s story words Jan Bruck photo Rachel Watts Since retiring in 1998 from University, Jan Bruck has lived in Australia and Germany; regularly commuting between Sydney and Berlin. In these challenging years he has learnt more about life, family and relationships than at any time before.

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A while ago I was going through a rough patch— living alone—and wondered whether I was doing the right thing as a grandparent. Looking for answers, I went in search of texts for advice without any success.

Disappointed with the dearth of information on the topic of grandfathers, I decided to write something myself, share my experience with others, and draw attention to what is still a neglected area of contemporary family life.

I married, rather immaturely, at the age of twenty two, during the rebellious sixties, when the last thing most of the young males in my peer group were thinking of was procreation. My siblings and peers all started marital life much later than I did. No wonder I can’t count any grandparents among my close friends, with whom I could share ideas and experiences. By the time they catch up, I might already be preparing for great-grandparenthood.

Whether separated or not, becoming a grandparent changes your life in a variety of ways. I remember exactly when, nearly fourteen years ago, my eldest son approached me in an almost apologetic manner—he realised that I appreci-

ated the freedom of no longer having the direct responsibility for my children who had left home about the time of our divorce—and asked how I would like it if I became a grandparent.

I had just started a new relationship and was feeling like a man on the go. Unexpectedly, after a moment’s surprise and hesitation, I actually liked the idea, despite the fact that becoming a grandfather had been the last thing on my mind.

Possibly motivated by the desire to strengthen the bonds of our separated family, it did not take long for my second son to announce the same ‘expecting’ event. Since then, a new child has emerged out of the womb of the family nearly every year, only coming to what seems its final stop some four years ago, with the ninth of the little ‘griddies’, as I like to call them.

The obvious and undeniable joy of being a grandparent is to see human beings develop, and the family continue, when one’s own life is slowly but surely drawing to its inevitable end. Since grandparenting usually does not involve the direct responsibility of rearing the children, it is on the whole easier than parenting; more fun and play than hard work.

Grandparents’ support is no doubt very important, especially in the early years or in times of difficulty.

I always appreciated it when our parents came to help or when, as a special treat, they occasionally looked after the kids for a few days so that my wife and I could have a rare holiday on our own.

Psychologists and social analysts like to point out that grandparents have a very important role to play as they offer emotional support and friendly advice to the little ones. With more time on their hands, and the wisdom of experience behind them, they can help empower the grandchildren by answering their intellectual curiosity, softening the impact of their steep learning curve, deepening their confidence in themselves, and motivating them to do things their own way. This relieves the pressure on the parents in their efforts to balance the diverse and often conflicting demands of childrearing—provided they are prepared to let that happen.

Aware of all this, it is reasonable to ask how it might be more difficult for separated grandparents to fulfil these roles. The problems faced by separated grandparents vary from one family to another, and each separation poses different challenges, but trying to understand what they have in common might make it a little easier for those affected to cope better.

What I find most difficult is the fact that as a lone grandparent you cannot harvest the fruit of your marriage together with your marital partner, at a time in life—usually after retirement—when you are meant to take it a little easier and build upon what you have created through your joint efforts. No matter how amicable the separation, it invariably removes the protective structure and comforting environment of the marital home so that you can’t take it for granted and build upon it any more, the way you would if the marriage was still intact.

I do talk to my former wife occasionally, and regularly meet her at family events like Christmas, birthdays and school events. Despite our separateness, we do feel a joint sense of pride and joy about our children and grandchildren. We also share the burden in times of sickness or stress, when our help is needed (even though I must admit that she does more than I do in practical terms). But we don’t do it as a couple—with a shared family home, common interests and goals, and a supportive network of friends. Even if you make every effort to perform as an intact family, you cannot hide the fact that there will forever be a fault-line running through the middle of it, which makes life more difficult in important respects.

The disadvantages of a broken marriage become apparent in quite ordinary and practical matters.

When you don’t live together any more, you can-

not simply divide up the various roles of caring and helping, the way married couples usually do to make things easier for themselves. Instead of one minding the kids, buying presents and looking after the household, and the other doing all the driving and most of the smiling—the way I remember it from my parents and parents-in-law— we have to manage most things by ourselves, and look after the grandchildren separately. I am used to it now, but find it onerous at times, especially when there are no other grandparents around.

Admittedly, there is a positive side to the coin. As a separated grandad I have to take a more active role and pull my own weight in the home. This can have an empowering effect on the grandchildren, who have a better chance to be more independent as they grow up. There is another bonus for the little ones if the grandparents live apart: they can establish a closer—and maybe more honest— relationship with each grandparent, and benefit from the fact that they usually receive presents and special treats from both. This makes up a little for the fact that the family is not as ‘together’ any more.

Being a caring grandad does reap other pleasant rewards. It has given me a meaningful role in my retired life, and makes me feel wanted, especially while I am alone. Seeing the ‘griddies’ is usually an uplifting and satisfying experience, whether we are chatting and doing things together or I’m simply watching them play. Apart from that, I usually get a special treat—a nice meal or a present— when I look after the little ones, which happily makes me want to come back for more!

As the children have grown older they have started to wonder why their grandparents are not together any more, and ask careful questions like, ‘Do you still love Granny?’ or, ‘Why aren’t you together with Mimi any more?’ I always give them a brief answer which doesn’t worry them unduly and makes them feel at ease, explaining to them that my wife and I developed different interests which made us go our separate ways when our kids— their parents—left the parental home. They don’t usually want to know more, and even though the reality is far more complicated, it is close enough to the truth.

There comes a time when as a grandparent, separated or not, you may need some help and, let’s not forget, emotional support yourself. That’s when the grandchildren might well give you back some of what you gave them, by their cheerful and caring company, and by providing the attention and appreciation you long for when you reach the end of your days. I am not quite ready to receive that yet, but will enjoy it when the time comes. page

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Seasonal craft Autumn inspirations

words Sandra Pyke artwork Deanne Lawn Sandra is a single mum of three wonderful children: 27 and 18 year old daughters, and an 11 year old son. She started Winterwood as a hobby and now twelve years later it is a full time business that supports her. Winterwood is a natural fibre doll and craft supply for making home made toys, specialising in 100% pure new wool felt.

Sandra’s after hours passions are listening to Krishna Das chants and audio books by Eckhart Tolle.

Autumn is crisp mornings, golden light; a colourful time with our beautiful trees in their autumnal coats. A time to watch as the colours change from green to striking oranges, reds and browns and to walk through the park and kick up piles of leaves into the air.

For many years our family has made a seasonal/nature display table. This is an idea that started in European cultures and has now been adopted by many Australian families. The seasonal/nature table is a special space set aside for this purpose. For example, a small table, mantle piece, kitchen dresser or maybe a tray that can be put on the dining room table and moved when necessary. It is a space that represents the seasons; a collection of items from the natural world that reflects the passage of the seasons. It grounds us in the season we are in and helps create a reverence for nature.

Young children love to go on nature walks— take a basket with you to collect treasures along the way. Look for fallen colourful leaves, interesting branches with moss, stones of different shapes and sizes, pine cones, pieces of bark, gnarly bits of wood, seed pods (especially from Australian natives).

A seasonal table is a way of reminding us to

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honour the seasons and be mindful of the way the natural world affects us. This seems especially important in the modern world since we are not always conscious of or ‘in tune’ with the outside world. The seasonal table changes with the seasons. I loved—when my children were younger— to change the scene while they were asleep so they could wake to find a new table with the new season or it can be changed gradually, together, as the seasons change.

For an autumn table, choose a soft flowing material. This can be a specially purchased cloth or an op shop find. I love to use a cloth the colour of what I see outside; orange, yellow, red, brown, green or a combination. Place objects under the cloth to give different heights in the display. Add an interesting old bottle, jar or vase with branches, flowers of the season, an autumn picture.

Then, add the treasures from your nature walks.

Autumn craft ideas Natural autumn leaf mobile

Autumn elf

Collect autumn leaves then thread onto string about 5cm apart. You will need to make knots in the string to stop the leaves from slipping down.

Make a few of these and tie onto an interesting branch.

Hang up as a mobile.

You will need autumn coloured 100% pure new wool felt, an acorn, embroidery thread, 25 mm wooden bead, 2 x cotton pipe cleaners, curly wool for hair, embroidery needle, scissors, hot glue gun, wool fleece, cardboard, a pen.

Autumn crown Children love threading. Make natural autumn crowns by threading lots of leaves onto hat elastic already cut to the child’s head size. Tie the ends together to create the crown. You may also make these with felt for longer lasting crowns.

Dry felted autumn leaves This is an activity for older children or adults as the felting needles are sharp and adult supervision is recommended.

You will need a dry felting needle, a piece of foam, autumn coloured wool fleece for dry felting and a piece of autumn coloured 100% pure new wool felt.

Collect maple or oak leaves, or get the children to draw their own leaves. Trace the shape of the leaves onto the felt then cut out the felt.

Dry felt the veins of the leaves onto the felt. To dry felt: place the felt on the foam then take small thin pieces of wool fleece and gently poke the wool into the felt using the felting needle, taking care not to bend the needle or it will break. Do this many times until the fleece is secure on the felt.

Make as many as you like and these can be sewn onto string as per the mobile or left to scatter on your seasonal table amongst the real leaves, sew or glue onto an interesting branch for your seasonal table.

If you sew two leaves together they can be a little autumn leaf shaped pocket to hide a small treasure in, or a little bed for your Autumn elf.

Trace the leaf pattern (pictured opposite) onto lunch paper, glue onto cardboard (a cereal box is ideal), carefully cut out your pattern. Hold the pattern onto the felt and trace around with a pen. Do this twice, as it is better to cut the felt in a single layer. Cut out the felt leaf pattern carefully as it will be easier to sew together. Take the bead and one pipe cleaner, insert the pipe cleaner into the bead about half way and bend toward the back of the bead, then twist the pipe cleaner as these will become the legs, take the other pipe cleaner and twist this around the neck, as per diagram 1.

With the hot glue gun, put some inside the bead hole and around the neck to secure the second pipe cleaner. You will need to shorten the pipe cleaner for the arms, twisting it back at the wrists or cut the pipe cleaner with pliers. Wrap the wool fleece around the pipe cleaners as per diagram 2.

Place one leaf on a flat surface and put the bead and pipe cleaner doll on the felt leaf, pin the second leaf on top, sew around the leaf with blanket stitch, making sure to secure it well around the neck. Glue on the curly wool for hair and then glue the acorn to the top for a hat. Draw eyes and a mouth. If you attach a little string to the back of the neck the elf can be hung on a branch.

Optional extra: you could also dry felt veins one side of the felt before you sew together as per the pattern.

Diagram 1

Diagram 2

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Ordinary people doing extraordinary things...

Human rights advocacy AND raising a family in Cambodia

words Rachel Watts photos Jo-Ann Lim Justin Flurscheim Rachel is a mother, psychologist and coeditor of this amazing magazine

At twenty-five, Perth couple, Jo-Ann Lim and Justin Flurscheim had no kids or other big responsibilities tying them down, so they decided to start a new life in Cambodia. Neither of them had jobs to go to, but with the confidence of youth, thought they would be able to find work in no time at all.

The couple was not put off by Cambodia’s brutal and tragic history under the Khmer Rouge and they both found meaningful employment within a month of arriving in Cambodia as human rights defenders.

Jo-Ann felt compelled to help people from a very young age and her work as a human rights defender is motivated by her own childhood experience of being bullied, because of her ethnicity (Australian born Chinese). Jo-Ann says, ‘I experienced quite severe bullying and racism when I was very young, around seven years old. My parents had just moved me to a new school and most of the other students were predominantly white. My dad found out what had been going on (back then teachers didn’t really get involved with bullying issues—at least not at my school) and he told me that in order to stop the bullying, I had to stand up to the bullies and defend myself. It was the most empowering moment of my young life.

‘I remember that when I finally stood up to the people who had been making my life hell, they backed off and left me alone. I realised that not only could I defend myself but maybe I could help others who were in similar situations to me.’

Bullying in all its forms has always made me angry—racism, violence, discrimination—the list goes on and on.’

Jo-Ann always knew that she would not go down the corporate lawyer route, although it was hard for her to break away from the mainstream, given that she comes from a family of corporate professionals.

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Justin’s path into human rights law was somewhat different. He explains, ‘I have had four different

career changes in the last ten years from accounting to corporate law to anti-corruption to human rights advocacy. Before I came to Cambodia my longest job was eighteen months. So I guess you can say I really love what I do here. I have been in this job since 2005, which is a huge record for me. Over the years I have been more drawn to work that makes a difference or means something or tries to make the world better. I always feel I was very lucky to be given the opportunity not to have to work to just survive the day to day grind, but be able to choose something that was fulfilling. Working overseas really opened my eyes to this opportunity.’

Before moving to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, almost five years ago, the couple had been working for Australian Volunteers International (AVI) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for about a year, working on human rights law issues. They were finding it difficult living and working in PNG but wanted to continue working in a human rights capacity.

Jo-Ann’s main work in Cambodia has been in the area of women’s rights, specifically, working on violence against women and on a small project that supports the rights of children who live in prisons with their parents, because there is no other place for them to go. She works on legal research, advocacy and education issues and with high priority/at risk clients.

Justin works in human rights advocacy—writing reports, articles, press releases and collecting data to produce material used to lobby the government and the international community to pay attention the human rights abuses happening in Cambodia.

As foreigners, Jo-Ann and Justin inhabit somewhat privileged positions and are not at great risk within their work, however the same can not be said for their Cambodian colleagues.

Since their arrival in Cambodia, Jo-Ann and Justin’s family has expanded to include their twin sons, who are two-and-a-half years old. I was curious about what it was like for Jo-Ann and Justin raising children in a culture different from their own.

Jo-Ann: ‘It has been wonderful raising a family in Cambodia. Our sons are actually Cambodian

and so we wanted to raise them in their birth country for at least a few years; hopefully they will remember this period of their life when they are older. Cambodians absolutely adore children.

We take our sons everywhere we go and they are welcome in market stalls, five star hotels or fancy restaurants. I have actually found that far from being annoyed at us or regarding our sons as an inconvenience, we have received better service and more warmth when bringing our children along. Complete strangers want to hold and cuddle them, if one of them starts crying, all available adults will start trying to comfort them and my kids have received many presents, chocolates and cakes throughout their short little lives...!’

There is a downside to this affection as it can be quite intrusive. Jo-Ann and Justin’s family attracts quite a bit of attention on a daily basis and this gets very tiring.

For Justin, a definite highlight of living in Cambodia has been the working conditions. He doesn’t have to work long hours; lunch is for two hours.

He spends heaps of time with his boys and gets plenty of holidays. The low cost of living affords them this lifestyle.

Justin also enjoys the fact that they are removed from the commercial side of life here; no constant ads on TV or billboards targeting kids. While Cambodia has a growing middle class, most people cannot afford extra luxuries therefore they haven’t been bombarded with commercialism.

They are also removed from parenting fads and are exposed to many different cultures, so they see how different cultures raise their children; Cambodian, Australian, American, Dutch, Finnish, English, French, Spanish, German etc. Nothing is strange or frowned upon because they are all different.

Many Cambodians believe that children should Living away from family has brought some chalnot cry or be upset; even to the extent that they lenges, Justin says, ‘You don’t get to share the believe a child should be given anything they deexperience with them (or have a baby sitter on sire (for example, sugary drinks and snacks are on tap) and your kids start to think Grandma and offer to children right from birth) and there is not Grandpa live inside the laptop after using Skype much discipline until children are older (around too much!’ But he also believes it has allowed him five or six years old). to grow and adapt his parenting at his own pace, without being under the watchful eye of his family.

This has led to some difficult situations when Jo-Ann and Justin have had different parenting For now, Jo-Ann and Justin are happy to live in ideals. People in Cambodia have not been shy Cambodia and raise their family amongst diverse about telling Jo-Ann and Justin if they think they cultures and different parenting practices, with are parenting their children wrongly. Jo-Ann has the idea that they will one day return to Australia, been lectured by complete strangers because they so their children can also experience childhoods think she is allowing her sons to get too much sun similar to their own. and therefore their skin has become darker! page

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Seasonal soul food Coming back to earth words Lisa Devine artwork Tina Papsavvas Initially Lisa trained as a youth and community worker and participated in lots of theatre and dance. After working with street kids and unemployed youth she travelled the world before completing a degree in psychology. In her forties she studied for the priesthood and now works as a chaplain in Steiner schools; she counsels adolescents and works with their teachers and parents.

After the summer fades and with it the glorious late summer evenings—gazing at the stars and lingering at dusk and dawn to drink in the colour of sunsets and sunrises—autumn wraps her soothing arms around us and draws us back to the earth. The cosmic dreams of summer are replaced by the delights of nature’s earth. We find our attention drawn to the sights and sounds of the world close to us. The smell of soup wafting across the veranda mingles with the sharp scent of smoke from the first open fire of the season.

It can be difficult to leave behind the endless possibilities and the spiritual richness of the summer, the time when the ancients knew we could converse with angels and dream. In autumn we turn to see the place where we live, our earthly home. At first we can long for the easy inspiration and feeling of connectedness that was summer’s gift. But secrets await us behind the misty veil of the autumn; the ancients knew that this was a time to look around us and get to know the earth’s mysteries. She is no less spiritual than the stars but her secrets are fathomed not by dreaming but by crystal clear vision.

Nature’s glory is revealed to us in a myriad of manifestations from the luxurious colour display of autumn leaves to the intricacies of seed pods and the daily changes in the garden world. It is a time to become like children with an endless series of questions leading us into a labyrinth of discovery.

Each day we can take the time to look closely and wonder and engage with nature’s mysteries.

Then it might be possible to experience that the footprints of the spirit are everywhere in the earth and she is no less divine than the stars. However this is up to us; that this is not just a nice idea but

a sensory experience we must actively seek, that sustains us, warming us for the winter ahead.

On the level of the soul too it is a time to look closely at the world around us. This takes courage; the courage to see the world as it really is, not as we wish it to be. This is the first step if the dreams of summer are to become the reality of tomorrow.

As we turn our gaze from the stars we see our lives as they really are—we can take stock of the fruits of our labours and enjoy the harvest of the seeds we planted last spring, both in the garden and metaphorically. It is also a time to notice what may not have grown fruit, to look at what is not working; to see what it is that unsettles us.

In autumn we are encouraged to look globally and locally, right in our back yard. It is not easy to look closely at the facts of the world such as poverty or climate change, or at the facts of our own lives. But nature herself encourages us in all her colourful glory. Remember the cycles; as the trees let go of their dying leaves, look closely and see hiding the buds of next year’s spring. New life awaits, even amid the dying of the old.

In autumn we are invited to leave the temple of the cosmos and enter the temple of the earth.

With the courage to see the world as it is in our hearts and the spirit of discovery in our minds we can follow our questions on a journey of wonder, knowledge and wisdom to a new vision of the earth, our home.

To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wildflower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.

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William Blake

pizzas from scratch and then watch DVDs in the lounge room that we would set-up with mattresses on the floor, like a huge bed.

The Mother of all teenagers words Sarah Young artwork Gwenn Moen Sarah Young has two daughters and loves living in inner city Melbourne. She is a freelance arts educator and works across many settings. Her work includes classes in dance and drama with young children and lecturing in the arts education at university.

My teenage daughter has her own bubble. I am not sure when this happened, I am not sure how it happened, but her bubble is clear, delicate and yet strong, and not mine anymore. I first became aware of her bubble on her fifteenth birthday, of course, it could have happened earlier but I first noticed it then.

Peculiar as this may sound, I have loved and enjoyed having my children’s birthday parties at our home. We did do the farm out job once, when my second child was born and I couldn’t have planned making a cup of tea let alone a party for four-year-olds, but it didn’t feel right. We have a great format—invite only a few children, definitely no parents, and the normal party run down: food, games, and rituals.

On the night, the pizza making went well and my younger daughter and I made sure they had everything they needed before we went into my bedroom to give them some space. When you live in a small house, and you give over the kitchen and lounge room to your teenager, your bedroom is the only place to retreat to.

We took my laptop into my room to watch a DVD in bed.

All set up with snacks, the dog, and a kid’s film, I went to shut my bedroom door and looked down the corridor towards the dinner table in the kitchen and there it was—my daughter’s bubble. Maybe it was the distance, maybe it was the time, but as I watched these five teenage girls chatting, laughing, and squealing as they told their stories, plans and dreams to each other, I could feel something that wasn’t visible to the eye.

What is this bubble? It is definitely a space that I cannot enter. This used to be a place that I shared with my daughter but now she has her very own bubble. She can come into mine, but I cannot enter hers, I am not privy to this anymore. I stood in the doorway and felt privileged to be able to see these girls, who are not yet women, hold their space. As a parent the line between giving space, and letting go too early, is a thin one because sometimes the bubble is difficult to see. Should I suggest; should I let her work it out; where is the edge? It’s always changing as the bubble moves depending on the day, situation, and mood.

My youngest daughter still shares my bubble and As my daughters have grown older, we have easily she is able to enter her sister’s, but not me. I have to wait for her to come into my space. I know that switched from the younger child’s party mode to this is the way it is meant to be, but sometimes, a music and film quiz night kind of thing. Howjust sometimes, I want to see the view from inside ever, for my eldest’s fifteenth birthday, none of that bubble. What will happen when my youngthese were going to work and she suggested a sleepover for a few friends. Great, I thought, I can est daughter moulds her own—maybe this is the gentle push for me to get ready for my own cope with four extra teenage girls for the night. bubble again?

We decided that for dinner they would make

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