Tough Vermont Woman

Our community rallied to make cedar shakes for the roof of a bus stop at the arrival of EarthWalk Village School.

mmmmm!

The wild leeks beckon to us everywhere we walk. So we indulge them and take tiny raw nibbles, or ask them if we can take them home for a stir fry. Sitting among a hillside that tumbles wild leeks down itself, I float and feel more grounded than ever before. Thank you leeky pooh.

the bud bursting and bird babbling festival

Inspired by the Akwasasne Freedom School's celebration of special holidays, we had a little festival of our own today. There are tiny fuscia feathers protruding from the alder buds, and the Eastern Phoebe calls from atop the leaky Maple Trees. It's enough to make you feel sexy on a fine spring day. We drank freshly boiled maple syrup and roasted apples over a fire. Twenty of us at EarthWalk Village School joined hands in a circle and danced around in typical contra dance style, on our very own "Hawthorne Meadow", one of our students played her fiddle and five others drummed while we twisted and twirled and spiral-danced our way into spring. barefoot. laughing.

and it's the laughter, i think, that makes room for everything else to sink in.

Yesterday I felt Exhuberant

at the beginning of yoga class. The instructor gently asked us to notice how we felt in the moment. And, she said, if we felt exhuberant in the moment, to accept that as NOW, for in the next moment the feeling could be gone. Later that same afternoon I felt low, conflicted, tiny and internal - but her suggestion was still with me. In that tiny, low moment it became clear that both feelings are pieces of rice in the same bowl, one is in the first bite I take, another in the last. Each nourish me as completely as the other. Some are easier to chew.

Akwesasne Freedom School

I am immersed in a culture of impassioned learning. Today I witnessed six-year olds bending down on all fours to smell the earth's fresh potency of Spring. How is this learning different from receiving an education? Oh my. Every damn good teacher and parent I know embodies the answer to this question. It's the same as the difference between falling in love and jumping into love feet first. It's a conscious decision. Each child is revered as a person who has a choice about what he or she is energized and impassioned. And the journey begins, from inspiration, to focused work, to celebration to reflection and meditation - becoming less and less faciliated by the adults (or big kids who drive cars, as our students put it) - and more and more simply a space that is held by these adults. The process is not ours, but inspired by and borrowed from 3 million years of practice that is forgotten in many schooling systems of our industrialized culture. There are many others who remember the impact of following the earth's rhythms and paying attention to each student's gifts in order to hold a space for them to discover their passions and direction. Most of these are parents and teachers. Check out the school below for a raucously traditional way of prioritizing learning over educating.

The Akwesasne Freedom School's "holidays are in correlation with the Kanien’keha:ka Aohsera (Mohawk Ceremonial Year). During the school year there are 15 traditional ceremonies: Midwinter, Dead Feast, Tobacco Burning, Maple Tree, Thunder Dance, Medicine Mask, Seed-Planting, Strawberry, Raspberry, Beans, Green Corn, Harvest, Thunder Dance, Dead Feast, End of Season. The children may not go into the formal classroom during these days, but they are expected to go to the Longhouse and attend the ceremonies, which through participation is an active way to learn about one’s culture." (http://www.peace4turtleisland.org/pages/Akwesasne%20Freedom%20School.htm)

Rye is adorable

I, too, think librarians are cool.

I've been getting shit for "The Town Librarian's hair". And I'm loving it. Let's face it, sometimes cool people have bad hairdos. This does not include all librarians. I would venture to guess that more people from other professions, say 80's butt rock musicians, for instance, have a higher overall percentage of bad hairdos than do librarians. For the record, I am neither of these, and I've suffered from bad hair myself.

Bonnie and Deck

joined us for dinner. I burnt the candied walnuts and the crust on the apple pie tasted like I hid my hiking boot in it, but they smiled through the whole experience. She's one of my best friends in Vermont. She's over twice my age, our spirits are kin. We sit on chairs next to each other and coo and cuss through bottles of merlot, her favorite. Deck and Joe sit cozily downstairs, sipping Jack and Ginger, on the rocks, no straw. Joe, entranced, listens to Deck recount 85 years of life from farm boy to international banker. We love them.