Wow, the weather is gorgeous today – there’s a bumblebee just outside the office window, the chickens are getting excitable (they even came to hang out under the kitchen table at lunchtime) and it’s time to get planting. It feels as though Spring is already here, though it doesn’t officially start until the Spring Equinox on 20th March.
I’m very excited about the garden and all the edibles that I am planning to grow. My current gardening bible is Food Not Lawns by Heather Flores. It is a amazing resource, full of ideas and inspiration, with a permaculture approach. It is unlike many other gardening books in that it is not so much about what to plant when, as a chunky guide to getting involved with your community, growing things for free and how to support the current ecosystem in the garden. Brilliant!
We have just this moment finished another edition of the magazine which will be available in a few weeks time. It was great fun to put together and is packed with articles. Jez has gone to have a lie down in the sun, having not slept for two nights. We have sunk into a funny rhythm the last week or so and I am looking forward to straightening that out and getting back to ‘normal’ life again!
I did a radio interview this morning with a local London station about attachment parenting, peak oil, food systems and the magazine. It was good to debunk a few myths such as washable nappies are hard work and it’s tough being green in today’s society.
Right, am off to sow some seeds…
I am exploring some ideas around unfooding and wondered whether anyone had any experience of this? Have you tried it with your own children? And what were your experiences? I like this idea – we follow a similar approach to education at home so I’d like to find out more about the un- or defooding process.
There seems to be quite a lot of talk about this in the States at the moment. The way I understand it you leave your children to completely govern their own food choices; when, where, what and how much. This follows on naturally from child-led breastfeeding, where the baby determines when he wants food and how much he needs. I guess I am part way towards providing an unfooding environment for my children. Mealtimes tend to be a big hotchpotch of raw goodies, some homebaked stuff, salads and a main dish like risotto or pasta. Everyone just chooses what they fancy eating at that point (and sometimes that’s quite a lot of food and sometimes barely anything). I try hard to suppress the anxious mother that resides deep inside and is eager to see her children eat nutritious food, and to trust their natural instincts instead.
So, in a sense they get to eat what they want (or what they want from the limited food selection we have in the house). However, the choices around when and where they eat is not so simple. I like all food to be consumed around the kitchen table (except for extenuating circumstances – think popcorn and occasional family movies, raw chocolate icecream and a deep bath and so on) because it means less tidying up etc. And family mealtimes are usually one of the best times of the day – we all get together to talk, laugh and eat at least twice a day. I love mealtimes for their sense of coming together and feel so lucky that as home educators we sometimes get to share all three meals with each other in a day. I wonder if choosing to unfood would affect this.
Another issue that I have is that I believe that we need a certain amount of nutrients and the right balance of foodstuffs to realise our full potential. I don’t think that I have managed to achieve the completely nutritionally perfect diet for either of my children yet (and certainly not for myself, although I am well aware of what it is!) although I keep trying and making adjustments. So, would allowing them free reign with food undo all the work that I have done over the years to try and establish this wholistic diet?
I’d love to hear from anyone with any experiences of trying defooding. Am thinking about putting an article together for The Green Parent once I have tried it myself and it would be great to speak with others too.
The New Moon is a time of rebirth—a time when we are given a chance to start fresh. On Wednesday 25th February the New Moon is in the altruistic, receptive, and dreamy sign of Pisces. So what does this mean? Well, it is a good time to commit to personal goals that express positive and creative energies.
You might choose to:
• take a leap of faith – believe in something that you always wanted to believe in, but were too afraid to put your trust in,
• accept imperfections in yourself and in others,
• start a creative or imaginative project,
• consciously put aside time for peaceful, rejuvenating activities – these can include yoga and meditation, but can be as simple as recognizing your need for “down time” on a regular basis (a cup of tea and five minutes silence every afternoon for example),
• practice putting yourself into others’ shoes, and let some things go (such as judgments and frustrations),
• energize yourself through new experiences that require your imagination and compassion,
• connect or re-connect with a lover on a romantic level; share a dream with a friend.
One of the “lessons” brought by Pisces is to release some of the anxiety that takes control of our everyday lives. As an example if someone takes your place in a queue, tell that person, “Go ahead”, and mean it! If that feels sarcastic, don’t say it out loud, but think it instead. You might “lose” a minute of your time because that person jumped ahead of you, but you will have saved yourself the stress and negativity that comes from allowing yourself to get annoyed and impatient. Same goes for when you are driving. Let small grievances go. Smile at other drivers, or at least, smile to yourself. There is no need to get worked up. These are “little things” that, if practiced often, will help us to understand and apply Pisces lessons in far-reaching ways.
It can seem that the fishes are the easy going, romantic sign of the Zodiac but still waters run deep and we only see the part that’s visible. Pisces swim in deep waters and what happens deep within requires a level of solitude to understand. This is an ideal new moon to find your own way of diving within. One way to do this is through meditation, but you may have another method for accessing that deep private place. For me, it’s yoga. You might prefer surfing, chanting, or walking in the woods. Going deep within is the alternative to catching up on the latest news bulletins, and riding the waves of fear. This is the time to choose another path, and turn inward to find what you need to sustain you through hard times. Since Pisces is the natural artist, this diving inward is also a path to greater personal creativity, too. So unleash your creative side, bake a cake, paint a picture, make something. Do it just for you and enjoy yourself!
So this new moon is a portal to choosing love or fear. We are more powerful than we realize; what’s cultivated within is reflected by the kind of world we live in. This new Moon is a chance to re-create the world, one that is a mirror of who we are, at our most compassionate, unique, colorful, visionary and hopeful.
Today’s painting is by the incredibly talented Josephine Wall. With many thanks to her for her inspiring work.
Following on from our exciting natural textile discoveries in the latest edition of The Green Parent magazine, in which we showed beautiful clothing made from nettles, hemp and bamboo, I have just learnt about a cloth made from the fibre of pineapple leaves. How cool is that!
Produced entirely from the leaves of the pineapple plant, Pina Cloth is gossamer thin yet strong enough to construct light, airy garments. It makes a fantastic animal-friendly alternative to silk, is fair trade and is still made using the age-old traditions that have been used to produce it for hundreds of years. Weaving the fibres from the plant’s leaves is an age-old tradition which was recently revived in the past 20 years. History records suggest that Kalibo’s Pina cloth was traded during the Pre-Hispanic times and reached as far as Greece and Egypt during it’s heyday.
At Boutique Ethique, Pina cloth produced by a fair trade family-run company in the Philippines features is used to make items for the Spring/Summer 09 Collection, like this beautiful blouse, £130 (pictured). The company employs 85 weavers and insists on maintaining the traditional techniques, such as manual extraction of fibre, and preserving the cultural heritage of the weaving industry.
For more info on natural fibres see issue 27 of The Green Parent magazine.
The Full Moon falls on the 9th of February – the Sun in Aquarius and the Moon in Leo. Astrologically, this is a Fire Moon as it falls in the fiery house of Leo, creating a powerful, if volatile energy. Conversely in folklore it is known as the Snow Moon. Read on to find out what energies to focus on at this time.
This full moon is named the snow moon because there is snow upon the ground or it is at its most deepest at this time of the year. Other names include Moon of the Seer, Storm or Quickening Moon. It marks a time when the night of the year is drawing to a close and we are entering the half of the year with greater hours of daylight and warmth. However, just as a storm can flare up just before it ends so too can winter be most fierce just before Spring. We may feel drawn to continue our inner work – working with and uncovering our personal truth. It is said that this full moon brings light to illuminate our own darkness.
I like that analogy although I understand that that means some challenges in acknowledging and accepting the darkness within. I am going to use divination to help illuminate those parts which I might not otherwise be prepared to look at. And to find out which areas I need to focus upon in the coming month. At the moment I am using Wisdom of Avalon cards, which are beautiful and work on many levels, the Druid Plant Oracle, which I love because I feel drawn to plants and for a fluffier and empowering reading, the Goddess Guidance cards. I thought it would be a good time to create my own divination tools so am going to make myself a deck of tree cards over the next month.
I am also going to deepen my practice of really observing the messages that nature offers us. Last week, when driving back from a workshop with a carful of friends we came across an amazing, majestic stag, standing motionless by the side of the road. We stopped the car and everyone became completely silent just watching this beautiful beast. He continued standing there, staring back at us. In Wiccan belief the stag represents grace, gentleness and swiftness. I will never forget the image of him, white against the dark forest behind. And a day or so later when late and rushing to pick up my children from a party, feeling anxious, a white dove flew past and settled on a rooftop nearby, bringing calm and a sense of perspective to the situation. So now I am trying to be alert to further symbolism from the natural world.
This beautiful painting has been created by Carol – here’s her myspace page.
Tell us about what this full moon holds for you. I’d love to hear from you.
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The Green Parent is the UK's leading green lifestyle and natural parenting magazine. A truly inspiring read, TGP is like nothing else on the newsstand, with insightful intelligent journalism covering topics from babywearing and attachment parenting to home-education and alternative medicine. Each issue features regular columns on Organic Gardening, Seasonal Food and Drink, Green Travel, Ethical Fashion and lots more. Read more about Green Parent »
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