A Little Travel update!

Their wasn't a long procrastinating period for our plans to travel, no two years of waiting for the right time, or budget to see it financially feasable...
We haven't been hatching it on paper, in our courage, or upon our midnight conversations for years either,
some things just came together thats all, all at once and the decision arose from the swirlings of life happenings...
and here we are, two months since we said yes to this particular stirring inspiration and two months to go, before the first voyage steps begins.

In reality though, the journey is well underway, preperations are highly priority, my every waking move seems directed to getting us free enough to jump on our flow.

I have what is the beginning of a travel itenery and you guessed it if you were thinking we would head for India early in the show.

India is a place we know well and love (well on a good day that is).
Urgyen lived there for 13 years and speaks not only Hindi but the languages of the neigbouring countries such as Nepalese and Butanese as well of course his native Tibetan.

Firstly there is the task of being with our loves... family and friends for hugs and journey blessings.

Intially me and the kids will drive to Qld via my mother and then spend some time with my father and friends on the Sunshine Coast and Northern NSW.
Simultaniously Urgyen will be helping on a most magical tour where he will be exhibiting his art for the first 3 weeks of November with a renowned Tibetan singer Ani Choying Dolma.
His stops include Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney Opera House, Byron Bay, Brisbane etc.
I hope to weave in and out of his delightful east coast rondavoues and catch the beautiful concerts that are beyond, I have heard, any comparison.

We fly out from Melbourne towards the end of November into Delhi via Hongkong.
we have just 10 days in India, which will probably be spent in Rajastan or Dheradun the decision is pending hopefully not Agra.
Then we head for London and down to the Canary Islands for 3 months.
After this, I couldn't really say, although Switzerland and France are more likely places than other

and so at the moment it goes like this-

Star and kids                                                      Urgyen

                                 

Drive to Queensland via tribe (sell car)                            East coast Australia Tour

Fly to Melbourne                                                Meet us in Melbourne

Together

India- Delhi

Rajastan, Dheradun or Agra

London

Canery Islands -Tenerife

Of course the inner world of readying our beings for such a lot of movement has begun...
I am  definatly in a demolition zone, sheading all sorts of skins that could encoumber my footsteps...

I am enjoying letting go, mental and physical lumberings, wiping my slate clean so as to be ready to pounce at any given moment.
flexibility of mind is travel essential.

I will be back in a day or so with another awesome giveaway

and now to play in the snow that has powdered the world white.

Hi

13 cycles of the moon I have been coming here, and sharing, wearing my heart on my sleeve as I tend to do...

Thank you for reading and all that!

Last night amongst clear dream indications, 2 strong suggestions,

Sunshine and exercise!

I can see myself running for pleasure, my pendulous milk filled breasts, bouncing about shocking children and elderly alike.

Yes if not for the shock value, I shall begin to move my body.

Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.

A vast radiant beach and cooled jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.

Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake

Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.

Indians scattered, 
On dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's, 
Fragile eggshell mind

We have assembled inside, 
This ancient and insane theater
To propagate our lust for our life, 
And flee the swarming wisdom of the streets.

The barns have stormed 
The windows kept,
And only one of all the rest 
To dance and save us 
From the divine mockery of words,
Music inflames temperament. 

Ooh great creator of being 
Grant us one more hour, 
To perform our art 
And perfect our lives. 

We need great golden copulations,

When the true kings murders 
Are allowed to roam free,
A thousand magicians arise in the land 
Where are the feast we are promised?

One more thing

Thank you oh lord
For the white blind light
Thank you oh lord
For the white blind light

A city rises from the sea
I had a splitting headache
From which the future's made

Jim Morrison

Out the door it all goes!

Everyday something goes from us, off on it's own way, packages are packed, boxes are emptied, unwanted things are passed on...

Our lounge room cold and empty, a gaping space where once sat my velvet seats of red... passed on for a song, and shinning like blood on snow, as it wound up the drive...

The most pathetic thing I had ever bought, seems to follow me from room to room. I am not fearless enough to count this a loss and be done with it... 

I remember clearly my thinking at the time- What could I get in this whole world, that could make my life a little bit easier, it was a month or two after Chimme's birth...
I decided a battery operated pencil sharpener would save me sharpener burn, and encourage others to take up this task and we always did seem to harbour, a lot of blunt pencils in our drawer!

It cost me $50 the very best Derwent battery operated sharpener, with some fancy metal as blade. 

After the first sharpen it ceased to finely shave and the pencil spins round and round to no effect... from that day till now a haunting it has gave.

I think I shall list it as the most pathetically expensive, non working sharpener ever on ebay and we shall see what we get...
At least I got, a boring story out of it... can let it go now I suppose.

Writing!

It's a strange phenomena to put pen to paper or finger to key and expect something out of it, formed pictures that turn to words, stirrings of the heart into sentences. 

It's a fairly organic process as though one tacks the ideas onto ones furthest edge of being- weather beaten on the outer skin the reflective quality of it all starts the story motor, another way to extend tinkering onto current illusion and streams... 

Twigging flow.

 Maybe 5 note books, maybe more, were burnt to ash, my betrayed heart on the stoking stick, a offering to youth to the days long gone.

What I wrote those 12 years ago was just too raw, there was no comfort for me in them dwelling solid like, in the cold world.... 

what didn't stick on memory, floats in the place were even fire can not erase- once ejected out in the world, stains existence for ever more...

If I was to write- as a pleasure, and as a deep need, you would find my words attempting the kaleidoscopic mind, something mossy, sporic and mushy, under hedge and unwise, fained descriptive justice, or something else, I have never, the lonely pleasure to read before.

I would gladly leave the teaching tease to others Bodhi bitten, sweet tales of Dharmic light, to the love children whom's heart shaped box, lays open on a deeper journey.

Little things we do!

These days Love is, a good book, content children and interesting things to do…

Life is, the people around us, the teaming minds full of sparks.

When the sky is blue it’s on-

Everything or anything could be on…

We have been doing a little of this and a bit of that, in the name of no thing, just because-

because we are alive and relatively free, and have sunshine that promises a cheery day!

A bit of Archery, park dates and parties and whole lot of reading out loud- I am most excited about this reading, it is so hard for me, to find the time to read for myself, but this is a most satisfying activity, hours spent speaking books to my children.

One of the most blissed out aspects of having our days freed up, is the time to connect with others, we have had our new unschooly friends come to stay for a few days, what rumpus fun... 

We got back into Yoga, while they were here too. 

I’m sufficiently tired out, but not enough to muster up a book, a day back on our secret garden before hitting up Anne of Green Gables 9 book series... will probably see us through in reading, to departure day.

Gypsy Table- Queer Folk!

Queer Folk…

I have come to notice that my circle is made up of strange rare folk, which could be best described as queer, and curious.

I go about my social calls and am called upon, as part of this unusual tribe.

In my mind they are pirates, nomads and gypsies, healers, monks and manic’s, faerys and flow mads

Its something about me, that I have always know… but I regularly avoid overly positive types, social geniuses and well polished stones…

although I do hold my own in the light…

My preference is given to bleeding hearts, misfits, rebels, edgy people whom don’t quite get, what everyone seems to think is going on and people beyond feeling the need for balance all the time…

Balance is overrated and I much prefer the ones who flow with change, rather than always trying to measure it.

Although to measure, is a skill I am rather fond of…

Some really very interesting people exist, with curious ideas and unusual dreaming, they never look like princesses and often come one eyed, scar faced and unkempt but not on purpose…

When I think about it, Some are out rightly ugly, noses on their forehead and chins on their knees, yet in my mind they hold the fort of my thoughts shining… 

when I think of them, I think of sunshine and moonshine and the glow of a thousand lamps.

Their lingering sent- oil cloth, musky roses and jasmine in the late spring… 

Unschooling Notes!

Today was golden and surely my balanced temperament, was due to some rare astrological alignment, or maybe just the sunshine!

The light globe lit up… I am such a new kid on the free school block-

It’s all about rhythm,

It’s all about me trusting children,

It’s all about simplicity.

And without sounding like a cliché, today, at last a breakthrough, 

it’s all a matter of flow really…

Grounding out in the morning with breakfast and books, lego’s and dolls

Bringing her into the lunch preperation, gentle with the requests...

Reading to her in the afternoon, we finished Pippi and are on the Secret Garden, talks and animal care…

She makes dolls clothes from her underwear ( genius) and reads Japanese comics on the Buddha, she had 2 baths, changed her clothes 5 times and disappeared in the garden for awhile, she made a car for Chimme and drove him around… our day is filled with small things, the most interesting of things

I can do this!

Currently reading- Homeschooling our children Unschooling Ourselves

Self directed learning emerges from childhood play... It is the basis of childhood learning- Holt

In the Storm and Books!

I feel tossed about on the breeze of uncertainty... trying to settle into some sort of stable groove, while knowing that there are only 11 more weeks, before we walk out this door, for travelling life.

I have become over tired and fairly dragon like in the last week… I have managed to keep it all in, until now, as it splatters out on this page, my mild mercurial storm of words …

In this effort, a dark cloud hangs over me and gathers weight… heavy with all the things I haven’t done each day, like facilitating interesting learning opportunities for my daughter, go for a walk with the restless children, extended cuddle time, all the sweet stuff, like we have been accustomed too.

And with this lack and my bushy mood, the words "gentle parenting" reverberate around my exhausted head… and I wondered what constitutes a gentle parent... first of all, the parents has to be gentle with them self, 
Something I must start to do.... 
All I can say is that in my steamy moments, when I just can’t think of all my options, 
those clever options... 
ones that come with a balanced long range view…
I have been coming up with just 2 choices- 
implode or ask my daughter to leave me alone, while I calm down a bit … 
The later is my gentle parenting level at the moment!

We will go to the park tomorrow, if it's not too cold that is, take a break...

It is an immense task, that of deleting all our worldly possessions... making many set of flags for a recent order, organising the finer details of the travel, wrapping my head around the art courses, my husband is teaching, for an audience of what look's to be, in the thousands…

And did I mention my cow is close to giving birth and that I have a whole farm of animals to take care of…

This is the storm before the calm...

And these are my stash of books, on the not yet short enough short list, that I hope to find space to take with me...
Books I haven't read but want to, books I can't live without such as Juliette's herbals and books that will help me to develop my crafts and skills.
Their is at least 10 wonderful Buddhist books that I aspire to take, as well...
Oh my!

A kindle may have to make an appearance in our life soon

Mantras and Misdemeanours
2 Haruki Murakami books
Ringing Cedars book 2
Garcia Marquez- One hundred Years of solitude
Animal Vegetable Mineral
Art Life Chooks
My journey to Lhasa
Making Ritual with Motherpeace
More Magic wool
MotherPeace
Heaven on Earth- handbook for parents of young Children
Making Waldorf Dolls
The Children year
How Children learn
Common herbs for natural health
A gypsy in New York
Natures Children

I also want to take The unprocessed Child, after being recommended it...

like I said... Oh my!

)O(

I can't help thinking that the winter months seem to have past the threshold... there is a spring time aroma to the air, although their is promise of snow yet to fall.... and with this brightening light of sun, comes the opportunity to see what has been gathered and understood in the dark of those days, those short, stay inside have a hot bath and huddle by the fire days... in-which one naturally turns towards the inner experience...

The last year or so, I have had a pesky feeling that time is running out or speeding up...
It has built a momentum that makes me feel as though, each day is some precious experience, some thing that will never be had again, a sense of urgency has seeped in.

Although I have worn it on for size, I am not that into cosmic gratitude, feeling that their is an underling karmic cause for the things that happen and that we manifest according to universal laws our own feelings of abundance or lack there of... and as the old folk tale says it's hard to predict how our fate may turn- what could seemingly be a wonderful stroke of luck, could evolve into misery... and vise versa- everything seems in a blend for me!

What I do subscribe to... since the onset of this pesky feeling, is not taking things for granted, especially this fine life opportunity, I work so hard to not become complacent with my time, heart and body, of course somedays it dawns on me that I haven't noticed that I am living and breathing and here!
This noticing is the first step, to standing centre in each moment!

Spring kisses our ideas into being and as my Astrology Goddess just reminded me... break free from the shackles of the past and walk into new adventures and beginnings with the brave heart of the lion!

 )O(

Dreams of Waldorf colours!

Dreams and direction…

Sometimes I am surprised by the way in which my dreams deliver messages, they form in pictures of light and impress them self on my memory, so as to be carried through the waking transition and  unpacked during the next day…

A whole lot of my life’s direction and artistic expression becomes shaped and inspired by my intuition and dreams...  I always feel when I work from this place, that the result has some extra magic.

A few nights ago, I dreamt a Waldorf dream, which is a little timely, as I have been turning towards some Waldorf principles to enhance my way through our home schooling/ unschooling journey.

Waldorf is my kind of glamour, its so pretty, meaningful and fay!

The dream related to my flags, has left me with a clear message to create a series inspired by the Waldorf colour wheel…

And so this is what I have been playing with and I am ever so in love with the soft pastel hues my faery's now reside on...

I have a book in which I write all these lightning bolt ideas, one at a time, but in no particular order, I free them to the world, it is a wonderful way to work...

We Will travel the World Together!

In 3 months our family will be going on a massive Adventure…

We are taking our skills and dreams and unschooling to find a new playground amongst the people of the world. 


We bought one way tickets... 

It’s intense in our part of the communal farm these last few months, we are selling almost all our things- books, clothes, furniture, car and art… I spend most of the day listing the things on Ebay and Etsy and other markets, I make up signs and contact groups that may want my specific things like my few hundred homeopathic books, Waldorf stuff, birth equipments and Buddhist bits and pieces…It’s driving me crazy, I bathe my eyes each night with eye bright to sparkle them up, after a draining day staring at the computer screen…

Things have been selling really well, and it gives a sort of confirmation that indeed we will be blessed as usual on our earthly journey.

What will remain in Australia, so that we feel a small sense of still having roots here, besides my family is our giant Tipi and our Norwegian fireplace. I have a highly practical streak as you can see!

There are so many reasons why we have decided to adventure like this, we are not running away from anything, life is so good for us here, especially as we leave a place that could only be described as the naturalist, hippie, country dream. I have noticed that so many people desire a reality such as ours, farm, animals, spectacular natural scenery, established gardens and fruit trees, eco built mostly self sufficient house, and home based businesses… and it is a wonderful life, but we have done it now, life must evolve in a different way.

I could give you a whole lot of romantic notions such as my heritage of travellers and my constant inclinations to explore the vast earth, as my reasoning’s... We will go to family and friends all over the globe and hustle about with our art and crafts and skills.

To be sure the children will learn so much, it will be the most practical experimental way to test our inner abilities to see truly our level of tolerance, patience and wit.

I hope to bring you along, via this space, but I will be open to whatever I feel to do, I have been contemplating a book, have the beginnings of businesses to bring into fruition, have a whole heap of ideas to assist others in, as well as everything my husband does… but generally I want to be more spontaneous and move away a bit from validating my journey with this blog…  but I suspect it will be the opposite and that I may ground out my experience by writing here…

We will see….

This Girl.

This girl sits on my antique Tibetan singing bowl and juices all the oranges, the glasses never seem to fill, instead are taste tested continuously, while rare rays of sun streams into the Window.

 The days are getting longer but also colder... We are getting edgy for the travels to begin.

We have still a lot of things to shed... 

We were aiming high, to think that we might get rid of it all... 

I have always found collecting much easier!

Pocket Pixie Tutorial

When I brought out my pixies from the wild depths of my wardrobe, it caused a sensation about our house... Pixie and fearys proliferated and was spread by the children from one side of our abode, to the other.

So what does one do, when trying to keep some sort of tidiness to the space, surely the regrouping of pixies could be embraced as a fun clean up task.... and surely, they make a most wonderful novelty to the game hide and seek... who can find the blue winged faery, the yellow mushroom in the circle, the pixie with the long pointy hat..

Playing this inspired an idea... I shall put one in my pocket and when they are almost done picking up, enact a faery voice and direct their attention to my coat...

I would begin... "I can hear something a little sweet voice, can you?" attention brought in,

"Something’s talking to me and wiggling in my pocket" I draw out the suspense longer than this and with a sense of theatrics

And then out of my pocket a little pixie pops out, 

Oh they are IMPRESSED!
Pixie tells them to clean their room- they take this news better from pixie, then from me!

When we go traveling soon, I should have a permanent pixie in my pocket, for all those long airport lingers, and shy children just waiting the chance to be enchanted.

 I could use my pixie to impart those instructions that could use some sparkle, like "hey pixie wants to tell you something", "he is worried that your shoe lace is untied and that you could fall into a goblin bush and get prickles in your nose"... That sort of thing...

I had a fabulous idea, that I could rig up my traveling jacket using strings, velcro and bottomless pockets and with a simple pull of some lever or cord, have pixies come out of all sorts of places...

Children would flock with glee and the poor tired mothers could have a moments rest, and they would mouth thank you from across the room... 

So if you would like to make a sensational diversion tactic,

Here are the so simple, it is almost not worth putting it up, instructions... 

Of course you can use anything, not just my patches but little dolls, pictures, etc
The good thing about the patches, is that they are flat, yet stiff and wont be damaged in the wash.

So grab your things
pixie
scissors
elastic
thread and pin.
simply sew the elastic to the back of the pixie and pin the other end in your pocket. if making this for a child best to sew into the pocket, and not use a pin.

I also made a wishing star, so when we see something that needs a wish, 

we can bring out the pocket star or just use it as a telephone to the moon...