Be Amazed

Mary Oliver is one of my favourite poets.  She writes eloquently and beautifully and with a reverence for nature and spirit.  The verses included in this  journal spread are taken from her poem “The Sun“.  The scan isn’t great – the paint is actually much, much brighter – but I think it conveys the spirit in which it was created.  “Be amazed!”   Take time to pay close attention to the world and you can’t help but be amazed.  But how often do we take the time to be amazed?

In the words of the Buddha: “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

Which brings me neatly on to our sketches for this week’s Sketch Tuesday assignment, which is to sketch your very best blossom. Here’s my rather plain bloom:

Waif’s Morning Glory flowers:

Gman’s flower border:

After stating that drawing flowers wasn’t really “his cup of tea”, Gman then went on to do another flower drawing, and rather lovely it is too!:

Extraordinary Nonsense

Writing nonsense. It’s harder than you’d think. I know because I’ve tried.

One of the “extraordinary activities” in My Name is Mina is to write page of nonsense. This, I thought, I have to try. Here’s what I came up with:

Da schmergle wibbeth da flibberty raith und sminketh da postil off been
Und dan da schmergle bid sloweth da renchy und mayest da schmergle haff been
Da raith haff wendling bid main od ramith
Und dan da wendling mid wain
Ock oh! Ock oh! Ock oh!
Da wendling weepilst!
Da wendling weepilst!
Oh waif dan wendling bist reem?

Und dan da schmergle elfin da raith
Und wendling smid loffest ab leen
Ock way! Ock way! Ock way!
Da wendling smilfest!
Da wendling smilfest!
Da wendling smilfest bist leem

Lewis Carroll, eat your heart out

What’s your joy?

Sometimes I need to remind myself.

469

469.  That’s how many hexagons I’ve sewn together for this quilt.  Phew.

I love the soothing, meditative, repetitive nature of making this quilt.  I feel a connection to women from the past, ancestors.  So it’s only fitting that I should photograph it in sepia tones I think

More Fun with Mina

As I thought, My Name is Mina is proving to be a source of lots of learning, and lots of fun.

Mina talks about different beliefs about death and the afterlife, which was a springboard for learning about funeral rites in different cultures. We read about historical views on the afterlife from the British Museum, and the boys did one of the suggested art activities, which was to design a tombstone for a historical or fictional character, including symbols related to their life. Gman did one for Bilbo Baggins (of Lord of the Rings):

Waif chose Buddha for his:

Mina also talks in the book about a Tibetan creation myth, whereby the universe emerges from an egg. This inspired some super pictures. Gman did two interpretations:

And here’s Waif’s interpretation, complete with all the planets:

Next stop: poetry. My Name is Mina is peppered with “extraordinary activities” for readers to do. One of these is to write a poem “that repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word until it almost loses its meaning. (It can be useful to choose a word that you don’t like, or that scares or disturbs you.)“  It’s a measure of how squeamish the boys are that Gman’s word was “fracture” and Waif’s was “needle”!! This is the first time Waif has written a poem and I think he did great:

If you’d like to read Gman’s poem, he has posted it on his own blog here: http://thebatamonblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/fractured-bone-poem/

I think it’s safe to say that we are enjoying this read and all the activities it has inspired.  Who needs a curriculum when you can be a free spirit like Mina?

Hot & Smoky Barbecue Sauce

I like a blob of sauce on the side of my plate as much as the next girl.  What I don’t like is all the rubbish that goes into commercial sauces.  For example, this is the ingredient list for a supermarket own brand barbecue sauce:

Tomato Puree,Glucose-Fructose Syrup ,Spirit Vinegar ,Black Treacle ,Dijon Mustard ,Soy Sauce ,Modified Maize Starch ,Roasted Barley Malt Extract ,Spices ,Flavouring ,Salt ,Onion Powder ,Garlic Powder , Sweetener (Sucralose) ,Celery Extract. ,Dijon Mustard contains ,Water ,Mustard Seed ,Spirit Vinegar ,Salt. ,Soy Sauce contains ,Water ,Soya Bean ,Wheat ,Salt.

Hmmm, so the second ingredient is glucose-fructose syrup (otherwise known as high fructose corn syrup – worse for you than sugar).  Yuck.   Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough there’s another delicious toxin, masquerading as a sweetener – sucralose (otherwise known as Splenda).   Not exactly the sort of thing I want to eat, and especially not something I want to feed my children.

So, what’s a girl to do?  Why – make my own barbecue sauce, of course!  Life may be too short to stuff a mushroom, but it’s not too short to rustle up some barbecue sauce to go with your home made burgers.  It’s easy peasy.   Here’s how:

Take these ingredients:

150ml tomato puree

150ml organic cider vinegar

125ml honey

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or crushed

1/2 tsp hot smoked paprika (if you only have regular paprika, use this but add some chilli powder too, for a bit more kick)

salt (I like my pink Himalayan salt)

pepper

Plop your ingredients in the saucepan.  Stir.  Bring to the boil then simmer for 5 minutes.  Serve.  Yep, that’s it!  Told you it was easy peasy.

Use some straight away and chill some down for the rest of the week.  As you can see from the pic, I served mine with burgers and roasted veg, then we had it again later in the week as a dip, and also as a topping for pizza.  Yum yum.

I am sharing this post as part of Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesday.

Internet as Intoxicant?

So, I’ve been watching Sylvia Boorstein‘s retreat teachings on Tricyle – “The Whole of Life as Practice” and something she says about one of the Five Precepts has really resonated with me. The fifth precept can be stated as “I undertake the precept to abstain from intoxicants that cloud my mind and lead to heedlessness”. Well, ok, I think – I don’t have a problem with that. I do occasionally have a drink (though less and less these days) but don’t get drunk. I don’t cloud my mind with drugs. This one’s pretty easy. But then, she goes on to talk about other things that may be considered to be intoxicants that cloud your mind and lead to heedlessness. Things like streaming news on TV. Things like email. Things like the internet. And that’s where the penny drops for me.

THE INTERNET IS INTOXICATING!

Am I really keeping my mind clear when I mindlessly browse the internet, clicking from here to there and back again?
Is compulsively checking my email or blog stats an example of a clear mind?
What about the half dozen tabs I have open on my browser? (damn you, Firefox, and your multiple-tab browsing!)

So, I’m going to try to use the internet in a more mindful way. To accept that, actually information can be stuff. And reducing stuff is my aim.

I’ve said it before and I come back to it again: I need to SIMPLIFY MY LIFE. This means clearing space – not just physically, in my house but also mentally, in my mind. I have visited this before, producing these art journal pages last year:

But it seems that I need to keep reminding myself of it.

This is my weakness. Or maybe one of many weaknesses.

In what ways do you intoxicate your mind?

Hanging Out!

Did you know today is National Hanging Out Day? I always hang my washing on the line outside, unless it is raining in which case I hang it up indoors. I do not own a tumble dryer (or “money machine” as my Nan would have referred to it!) and can’t say that my life is any the worse for it. I was astonished to read that in some places, hanging washing outdoors is prohibited for “aesthetic reasons”. That’s just bonkers. I, for one, really love to see washing hanging on a line, especially when it’s yummy indigo fabrics like in my picture above. So, save yourself some money, reduce your carbon footprint and ditch the money machine . Go here to check out all the reasons to hang your washing on the line.

Now if only it would stop raining!

Homeschool Book Awards

We were very excited to find out about the National Homeschool Book Awards, via Julie of Homeschooling Ideas. Basically, there are four books nominated each year described as being “designed to recognize and celebrate current juvenile fiction that explores learning experiences occurring outside the traditional classroom setting and that resonates with homeschool readers” – you read them in your homeschool and vote on your favourite. The website provides book club ideas for reading along too.

We had just finished reading the rather excellent book Skellig and were ready to get started on the prequel My Name is Mina so were very excited that this was one included on the list. Today we started reading it and then the boys got stuck in making their own version of the front cover of the book. Here is Waif’s:

And Gman’s:

I think this book will be a springboard to plenty of creative and inspiring activities for the boys, with opportunity to learn about all sorts of different topics. I’m really looking forward to reading more and, I hope, so are the boys

Gman’s Blog

I keep meaning to let people know that Gman has his very own blog. Those of you that spend time with Gman will know that, for several months at least, he has been working on a series of his own invented trading cards, similar to Pokemon, called “Batamon” cards. In this process, he has invented worlds, and characters, and landscapes. And now he is putting all that together into his own blog. It’s called “Battle Blog” (well, this is a 12 year old boy we’re talking about!) and can be found here. He is pleased to get visitors to his blog, thrilled if anyone clicks on “like” and absolutely over the moon to get a comment! So please check it out and leave a comment if you have time