Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Wow, the daily OMs I get are so in sync with unschooling :)

Check this out:

Little Gurus
Learning To Follow

As grown-ups, we often approach children with ideas about what we can teach them about this life to which they have so recently arrived. It’s true that we have important information to convey, but children are here to teach us just as much as we are here to teach them. They are so new to the world and far less burdened with preconceived notions about the people, situations, and objects they encounter. They do not avoid people on the basis of appearance, nor do they regard shoes as having only one function. They can be fascinated for half an hour with a pot and a lid, and they are utterly unself-conscious in their emotional expressions. They live their lives fully immersed in the present moment, seeing everything with the open-mindedness born of unknowing. This enables them to inhabit a state of spontaneity, curiosity, and pure excitement about the world that we, as adults, have a hard time accessing. Yet almost every spiritual path calls us to rediscover this way of seeing. ! In this sense, children are truly our gurus.

When we approach children with the awareness that they are our teachers, we automatically become more present ourselves. We have to be more present when we follow, looking and listening, responding to their lead. We don’t lapse so easily into the role of the director of activities, surrendering instead to having no agenda at all. As we allow our children to determine the flow of play, they pull us deeper into the mystery of the present moment. In this magical place, we become innocent again, not knowing what will happen next and remembering how to let go and flow.

Since we must also embody the role of loving guide to our children, they teach us how to transition gracefully from following to leading and back again. In doing so, we learn to dance with our children in the present moment, shifting and adjusting as we direct the flow from pretending to be kittens wearing shoes on our heads to making sure everyone is fed and bathed.


I love the last paragraph "we learn to dance with our children in the present moment, shifting and adjusting as we direct the flow from pretending to be kittens wearing shoes on our heads to making sure everyone is fed and bathed".

That "dance", I love it put that way.

You can get your own daily OMs here

And while you're there, there's a page on joy that I thought was beautiful.

*******************************************

So, what have we been doing?

Our days have been filled with warm weather, our pool, caterpillars, friends, World of Warcraft again, and Harry Potter. (I'll post pics soon :D )

We are getting ready for friends from afar to visit, which we are very excited for--Roxy from NY is coming tomorrow and then we have the Lovejoys coming this weekend. They are our friends from SC.

~fun, fun, fun~ :)

2 comments:

Deanne said...

I loved that Daily Om, Kelli. That's one of the things I was trying to express in my comments about the video game post in my blog! Thanks for sharing that. I think I may even repost it at my blog; I like it that much! ;)

Have fun with all your company! Give the Lovejoys a hug from us. :)

Heidi Snavley said...

I just signed up for the daily OM, very good stuff. I just read the little thing they had on the earths chakras, very interesting. I ordered a book off of half.com about chakras because I want to learn a little more about it.