The global village tends no fire around which the children can gather. Its sophisticated arrogance is politely to sneer at domesticity as a lovely ideal, but ultimately a naive and inevitably temporary undertaking. It announces to anyone seeking to grow roots, that home is to be found everywhere, making sure that it is nowhere to […]
Miki’s Blog
Touch your child’s heart to feel her fear
Fear isn’t always visible on our children’s faces, even when their bodies are in turmoil. When my son was around four, we left the farm to visit the city for the day. We sat by a market square with an ice cream each, when a red-faced, drunken man walked up to us yelling and gesticulating. […]
The spell of potential
There are a few spells around, beliefs that are so common we hardly notice their insidious impact on how we lead our lives. Like when we tell a child “You can be anything you want to be”, without us actually having any way to know what that child’s potential truly is. Potential has no definite […]
Your child’s spiritual doctor
Your child’s nature unfolds like an oak from an acorn. Once she has tumbled onto the ground from some mysterious height, it is the soil and the wind and the rains that give her ultimate expression its particular form. Who she becomes when she’s well rooted and fully extended has painfully little to do with […]
Spring cleaning
When the sun comes out again in Spring, we notice how much there is that needs a good cleaning, stuff we’ve tucked away during the dark months of winter. Psychological garbage we’ve forgotten to take out. Guck that clutters our senses. Lead weights that sink our hearts. Unmet expectations and stale resentments with a sharp […]
An invitation to lighten up
Children are full of spirit, passion, life force, vitality. It overflows. The world is new! The body amazing. Puddles are endless fun. Strawberries! The fur of a cat. Hard edge of a rock. (Ouch!) Tears. Up. Look. Sunlight through a fall leaf. The ocean waves. Your child can point you to where you’ve grown stiff […]
Beauty as gratitude
Beauty is made before it’s perceived. It’s decorating the dinner table with a crown of fall leaves. Singing by a fire. Hand painting a dead tree. Speaking a kind word to a stranger, Carving little jewels from elderflower branches. Gathering moss in the shape of a mandala. Dancing to the beat of a brooding storm. […]
Considered consequence
You don’t have to be the consequence visited upon your child’s choices. Let winter teach her what it’s like to rush out without putting on that extra pair of warm socks. Let molten wax on the knuckle of her pinkie teach her about a burning candle. The most loving way to parent can be to […]
Your secret lover
Your partner doesn’t know your secret lover called Plan B. Plan B is softer, more loving, doesn’t smell of onions. It has nicer parents, better health, and always agrees with the values you want to share with your child. Plan B doesn’t age. It is the other life you dream of when this one seems […]
Your body says a lot to your child
Your child knows your body better than you might imagine. He knows the meaning of your hunched shoulders, the sound of your hurried heels on the floorboards, the slowly spreading smile before you get playful. Your body language says more than your words. The tone of your voice says more about your feelings than the […]
Place is your child’s close relative
A friend of mine grew up in the inner city, a world of asphalt, concrete, steel and the growl of combustion engines. Outside his apartment a solitary lime tree sprung from the pavement. Every day he’d climb that tree. He says he perched there for what seemed like most of his childhood, watching the world […]
Playlist of your ancestors
Music is a bridge to our ancestors You can wander on the arch of a tune towards the loved one’s you’ve lost. For me it’s Marian Anderson’s “Coming through the rye,” a song my father would theatrically sing to us as children. Or my grandfather’s songs that he learned in Sweden’s endless spruce forests, during […]
Making humans who serve life
There was a time in your ancestry, either within living memory or well beyond depending on your particular lineage, when a child was raised not to be all that she could be, but to serve life. Raising a child like that takes a lot of cultural savvy. The songs, the stories, the games, the rituals, […]
Connect before you direct
Coming out of our house, I see my youngest son peeing all over our new patio. I’m incredulous, and tell him to get a bucket and wash the stones. Later I ask how come he peed there. And here’s what he tells me–he was competing with his brother to see who could pee the farthest […]
Fear and love and honeysuckle vines
Love and fear grow intertwined like honeysuckle vines. You cannot disentangle one from the other. Your vast love for your child braids endlessly with your overwhelming fear of loss. Your worry is a measure of your love. Sometimes you protectively hold on against your better judgement, knowing full well that love asks that you let […]
Attachment beyond mom and dad
Attachment theory places a child’s sense of belonging at the breast of the mother, or in the lap of the father. But we’re all born with a need for attachment to a home that is far vaster than the nuclear family. Imagine instead an attachment theory that knows the pain of being uprooted and adrift, […]
Tending a good fire under any condition
We all have a fire to tend. It burns inside of us. A good fire is welcoming. It draws people in to hear your stories, or enjoy the comfort of your good company. Sometimes your fire burns too strong. On days like that, your family doesn’t know whether to approach you at all. You’re giving […]
Music tunes your child’s spirit
In our fragmented and commercialized culture, it can be hard to know how to nurture your child’s relationship to spirit. You may not know yourself what it means for you to be a spiritual being, someone at home with all that is unknown, unseen, or beyond your understanding. You may not have an intact practice […]
What if your child doesn’t say thank you?
A friend came to stay with us and brought gifts for our children–two really cool, powerful flashlights. The boys loved them, but they didn’t say thank you. They rarely do, and that’s ok for us, but sometimes it rankles people. This is all our fault; we’ve never told them to say thank you when receiving […]
Your child’s gift holds the family together
What sets every family member apart is what holds the family together. This is an old ancestral understanding. The strength of our relationships grows from our willingness to honor, celebrate and cultivate our differences. Every child has a unique gift, talent, passion that complements the gifts of others. These are the variegated threads of a […]