For the past year, I have been working in earnest to develop a new relationship with failure. In fact, being willing to try new things and fail might be the greatest lesson I carried away from my stint in the Waldorf Teacher Training Eugene program this past year.
Last night, while we were scooping homemade wild blackberry preserves into the goat's milk yogurt I made for the first time, Ian said “Too bad you didn’t milk the goats, too, Mama. Then you could really say that you made this desert.”
If there has been a message I have been getting from Life lately, it has been to see my own life more as a pilgrimage, a holy journey, and less like a race to some goal or destination.
It is harvest time in Oregon, and I am nearly frantic with the desire to capture as much of nature's bounty as I can.
On Ian's first day of kindergarten, he looked at me defiantly, crossed his arms, and said, "I am NOT going to kindergarten!"
"Why not?" I asked, genuinely surprised. This was the first I'd heard of his opposition to attending school.
"Because if I go to kindergarten, I'll have to sit all day. If I sit all day, I'll have to get a job where I sit all day."
So here I begin, with a reflection on beginnings. Just over a year ago, my family and I moved to Eugene, Oregon, from Austin, Texas. There were many reasons for this move--proximity to my parents, the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the ability to grow food--but for me, this new beginning was also rooted in the pio pios.
My intention in writing this blog is to cook up some "soul food"--stories to challenge, nourish, and strengthen the soul--as we navigate some choppy waters in a world in the midst of profound change. This is not a DIY homesteading blog, or a blog dedicated to naming or even solving what it sees as the problems of the world. Others do that.
