Today is Halloween for us North American folk, and yet again I found myself in one of our neighborhood community gardens. All alone. Thankfully. Today is not so much about nice blue colorful wispy beautiful leaves, with poetic and profound poetry interlaced, but more about the honest truth about looking deeper at the perfection of imperfection. Another deep look inside.

Not so much willingly brought on my ‘me’, as by one of my dearest firends, pointing out a personality flaw in ‘me’, and me realizing it is a douzy that I haven’t yet really addressed. My heart kind of sank when he mentioned it, because I knew it was so true- though my ego desperately wanted to prove that he was wrong, that I wasn’t what he said, but I know, well, yes I am like that. In fact the truth is that every now and then I close off, shut off, cave in, retreat, push away the world, snarl, get foamingly angry at the smallest of small, send hurtful thoughts to those I love the most in this world, and become exceptionally difficult for those I love to be around. The feelings of pain and shame, of how I have hurt, shut out and closed off my loved ones is a hard pill to swallow. In one sense it feels like a kind of autism, as it is hard to talk and I get obsessed with cleaning, on the other hand it is like a intense version of PMS. Though I know it is not PMS because it usually only comes on after I have eaten chocolate, beef or cheese…

So today as I was trying to figure out if this is part of my personality that is set in stone or this is something I can change. Obviously I can stay away from those foods, but is it the foods, or is it something else, some unconscious force in me that wants to express anger and have some alone time? Can I ever really know the answers to these questions?

With these questions on my mind, my grandpa’s 1969 55mm nikkor micro lens was attracted to a couple of groups of cherry tomato plants. The season is over for growing tomatoes, but the stragglers left on the vine were so beautiful and interesting to me. I started taking pictures of nice round perfect tomatoes, but quickly found my eye being drawn to the old, scarred and beaten up ones. The ones whose guts are wide open for everyone to see, who are past their prime, whose scars aren’t coming off with laser surgery, the ones who are ready to be buried in the earth, the ones who have lived out their lives and are full of pus and stories about what they have seen in this world, the ones who seem to be encased in barbs. (yes I see all of that in those tomatoes). I wonder if anyone else finds these beautiful? I definitely would not be picking these out in the grocery store for my summer salad, but today they are art.

Awhile ago a bunch of us were sitting around our living room, trying to figure out what our life long ‘thing’ was. Someone said theirs was living in a state of ‘crisis’, another friend said theirs was living in a state of ‘intensity’, when I was trying to figure out what mine was, I immediately knew that mine was living in a state of ‘emotional turmoil’. I am not really sure what the ‘thing’ is, or what we are supposed to do with that knowledge of what our thing is, but it makes sense to me, that when ever I go into one of these high intensity emotional turmoil times, I go back to God, I go back to prayer, I go back to art, I reconnect with my gifts and my passions, and I uncover a deeper layer of myself- and I also cause confusion and hurt to those around me. My thing, being in ‘emotional turmoil’, maybe be a curse, or maybe be a gift, maybe its both and for me the task is channeling it and balancing it, not inflicting its darker spikes onto my loved ones, but also allowing myself to feel it and use it instead of trying to repress it all the time.

I know that just like those tomatoes, I could be the perfect, round, red tomato for the rest of my life and that would be just fine, but I could also allow the interesting thorny scarred up pussy mess of a tomato to sometimes have its place too, that both can live in this world and be admired for their own inherent beautiful qualities. That maybe if I allow them to coexist the latter won’t smash down the door every now and then, beating up everyone in sight, pulling me by force into the nether world…

So now I leave you with this,
What is your ‘Thing’? (If it is possible to describe your inherent life personality flaw in one word)
How is it beautiful and how is it ugly?
Has it lead you to your gifts, or just given you grief?
How have you been able to balance it in your life?

On a rainy day.
I love these boys.

Will’s favorite food is spagetti (I think he inherited my love of sauce).
Olee will be 4 years old next week.

This may not work for everyone, but yesterday when Will decided to wake up early from his nap, I gave him a big bowl of fresh crunchy red grapes. He was so taken with them he didn’t even try to reach out with his grubby little hands and grab at my lens or run away like he usually does- he just sat there and munched away, and I got all the nice close ups I wanted (albeit chipmunk cheeked, but cute anyways!)

These next pictures illustrate an activity that happens here just about everyday- playing with the foam mattress/couch combo in the livingroom. At any giving day it becomes a fort, a jeep, a volcano, a waterfall, a pirate ship, a river, an ocean, a slide (as seen below) or any number of other imaginary realities olee deems fit.

Out beyond ideas of
wrong-doing & right-doing

There is a field

I’ll meet you there

When the soul lies down in that

grass

the world too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase,

each other

doesn’t make sense.

~Rumi

___________________________________________________________________________

Yesterday my camera found me in a small community garden a few blocks from my house searching out for signs of beauty within the foliage. The fall is coming and the leaves are turning gorgeous shades of every color. I love this time of year. The sun shining and casting shadows allow for the wild blues and purples on the leaves. I set my camera to the bluest white balance I could and to the ‘vivid’ color setting with lots of saturation and apeture set to f 2 (or somethings like that) and then just took pictures of anything and everything that caught my fancy. The photos above were some of my favorites.

Yesterday, Olee, Will and I went on a grand adventure to our local university’s farm and checked out the annual harvest festival. I say grand adventure because we got lost about 3 times trying to find the farm, and I almost gave up since I didn’t have a map and had never actually heard of UBC’s farm until a couple of days ago. But when we finally stumbled upon it, I was so excited and felt like I had found a treasure trove of nature goodness. I felt my shoulders drop and my mind find some peace for a few moments, where I could let the boys run off in their own directions and not have to worry about cars hitting them, where they could mingle with the natural world and be totally in grossed with making forts out of branches and wandering through pumpkin patches, catching grass hoppers, finding little trails to follow in the forest and running about and getting dirty. hmmmmm.

I heard about it through vancouver’s homeschooling yahoo group which I finally had the courage to join. I felt like if I joined the email group that I would forever be tied down to homeschooling and all the fears and insecurities would come rushing after me like a group of angry hornets. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened. I guess I learned a couple of good things this weekend. One, I was kind of nervous about going off by myself with the boys to a place I had never been to (the farm), but I went anyways and then had a great time, and even made a scarecrow for our halloween decor and drank some delicious hot apple cider. And two, feeling the immense fear over seemingly small things and going out and doing it anyways, feels daunting, but in retrospect is quite easy. And going out and experiencing life in whatever small form it may be, is incredibly exhilerating, exciting and brings a sense of joy and enrichment to my life.

Leafy sillouettes, sparkling specs of sunlight, mysterious moments. One foot in front of another, doing a disjointed dance. Trying to go forward, with a smothered perspective, still beautiful. My heart unleashed, my soul awakened, my body free, my mind exposed. Tiptoeing, stomping, gracefully pirouetting, forcing, retracting, up and down, breathing in, exhaling, I am alive. I am here. I am ready.

A flurry of craziness in my brain, these soothing images helped calm the incessant mental storm. With a bit of a heat wave today (for mid-september), and shane taking the boys out, I went for a picture taking walk by myself… like a little bit of heaven really. Trying to shut off my brain from the insanity that sometimes exist there, it is so relaxing to go out and find some beauty around me, to look at what isn’t so obvious on first glance and to see a different angle and sheen of light. Today, because it was almost mid day and so bright out, I was looking for different and interesting lighting opportunities. The sun hitting the backs of the leaves and casting different shadows caught my attention.

I sometimes get caught up in the hubbub of consumerism, feeling like I “need” to have all this ’stuff’ for the kids optimal development- when I go onto the internet and read about being ‘green’ and organic everything and how my kids will be forever scarred if they don’t play with only wooden things or have the best educational toys or eat organic vegetables… ay yah yah! Well, that gets my head into a spin because well, right now we are on the lower end of the tax bracket income and actually we would rather put that money into travelling around the world… but still, I have a habit of being somewhat of a comparing nut…  So then I take a few breaths, tell my husband about my money woes and he reassures me that our kids are bright and learning all the time, even if they don’t have these fancy expensive toys. Yes yes, you are right, most of the people around the world just played with rocks and stick didn’t they (I love to throw that one out there). So after another deep breath, I take my camera out into our neighborhood and am simply in awe at how beautiful and perfect everything is (and no, those leaves did not have organic baby toys to play with ), but they are perfect just as they are, and suited well to there environment. I know I need to keep that perspect in mind, that God knows where we are and is taking care of all of us no matter what we are going through. The sun is shining on our backs and we just have to turn around and see it! Okay, now I feel better, thanks.

A very yummy granola recipe that I inherited from my mom and changed around a bit to make it sugar free:

6 cups oatmeal (I do 1/2 rolled oats and 1/2 quick oats)
1/2 cups sunflower seeds (or any other kind of seed or nut you have)
1/2 cups sesame seeds
1/2 cup flour (I use whole spelt flour- but any other kind of flour works too)
1 cup bran (I use oat bran- but wheat or any other kind works too)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp stevia (the white powder) (or 1/2 cup of honey if you prefer)
—–
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)
1/4 cup molasses (this is optional- but I like to use it if I am not using honey)
1 cup water

Pre-heat oven to 325′F. Mix the dry ingredients, and then the wet ingredients in a seperate bowl, then mix together and spread evenly over 2 cookie sheets. Put in oven for 15 mins, then take out and flip the granola around, then put it back in for another 10 mins or so. Voila!

edmonton trip ‘09

Click on the picture above to see a small slide show of our trip.

We just got back from a great road trip to Edmonton. The 4 of us took 2 days to get there and drove aprox 6 hours each day with two 1 hour breaks interspersed. It was a grand adventure for us as a family of 4, as we haven’t ever done a trip like that- but after all is said and done, it was a success. As soon as we were leaving the city I think I sighed about 100 times, as it felt so good to get out into the country, on the open road and experience a slower pace. Don’t get me wrong, we had our moments of insanity, usually at the end of the 6 hour drive, where everyone wanted to get out and run around and never get back into the car… but oh man I love to travel! To change up the routines, to meet new people, to taste new foods, to see new sights, to meet old friends and visit dear family- Did I mention I love to travel?… I can’t wait till the next trip.

Thank you everyone for your insightful comments. I really appreciate them! It seems like my maternal super overprotecting instincts have kicked in and every decision about the kids future seems like ‘life or death’… I asked my dad to elaborate on his comment on my last post and this is the email he sent me. I thought it was very eloquent and concise, and is giving me lots of food for thought!

Hi Juliet,
What you are learning is really quite amazing. It is really
nice to see you excited about doing a lot more things that will
develop your own self.

Ok, either/or v. and. When you use “or”, it usually means
that you are placing some kind of limitation on yourself or others
because you see the world as black or white, right or wrong, good or
evil. In your case public school is bad because you can see a lot
of the limitations it has and you have experienced a lot of them.
Homeschooling might be a better option, but who wants to spend all day
teaching your child to do reading and math and science, etc. Your
mind is stuck in thinking that it is a choice between public education
or homeschooling. You see public education as bad and you don’t want
to do homeschooling. You can solve the situation by using “and”
instead of or. You can say to yourself well this is what public
education can do and this is what I can do at home. Public
education probably won’t be good at teaching Olee how to take risks or
how to create and see beauty or how to have a relationship with your
Creator. That is something you can do, but the public system can
teaching reading and math and science, etc.. So really the focus on
education is more shared.

What probably freaks you out is that the public system was never
really designed for you in mind when it was created. This is
because the unconscious aim of the system is to get you to do what
those who control the resources and power want you to do. It is not
designed to teach people to have courage or see the beauty in
everything because those virtues are threatening to the power source.
Olee and Will need to learn those things in other ways.

What you are beginning to figure out for yourself now is that
you can be a mother, look after the needs of your children and family,
and do things that develop your own talents and abilities. You are
losing the dichotomy of motherhood v. your own development. When
you use and instead of or then motherhood and self development become
like partners that multiply your resources and energy. When you choose
one or the other, then they compete against each other and drain you.
You can say it like this. When I am doing motherhood well, it is
developing my self in ways that I never expected, and when I am doing
something like running in the Sun Run, it is helping me to be a great
mother.

This is what Baha’u'llah expresses in the Third Valley of the
Four Valleys. It is when you can understand that black is white,
right is wrong, good is evil, hard is soft, real is imagined, that
you can enter into a different realm. Sometimes it is true that
right is right and wrong is wrong and the need for making a choice is
important, but where you are right now, running is mothering. It is
not about choosing one or the other. When you can answer the
question how is running mothering, then you will be able to answer
the question of the education of your children.

Hope this helps.

Much love
Dad