“It’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.” My son spoke this sentence today. We were stuck with the car in an icy ditch. Foolishly, I had tried to reverse uphill on a crust of compacted snow and rain. There was a lot for me to learn here (and model too!). He’s heard […]
Miki’s Blog
Awakening
You suddenly realize that you’ve hurt your child. You cloak yourself in shame. The monkey mind chatters about how you’ve failed, that you’re a terrible parent. You haven’t failed. You’re awakening. Now it’s up to you to stay awake.
Respect trumps understanding
I just spent twenty minutes in the car with a sullen son on the way to school. We didn’t speak a single word the whole ride there, until we said goodbye with a long hug. I had no idea why he was mad–maybe something to do with his mom and shoes that were too warm. […]
Short-cut to an embrace
It’s hard to embrace your screaming child. Often because your child isn’t receptive when he’s enraged. Or maybe because you don’t feel very loving. That’s a hard place for a parent, knowing that right now you don’t feel affection. All you want is to match your kids anger with some of your own. Arguing doesn’t […]
How to plant your child in community
I’ve heard from many parents who dream of planting their children in community. Like them, maybe you too have raised your head and looked around and seen nothing but fragments of a village, shards of a tribe, threads of an ancestral tapestry. You think at times of moving your family to where community seems more […]
The origin of song
As a young, ambitious man, I sought the origin of song in the brain of an Australian zebra finch. I was training to become a neurologist. My practice was to pick apart the foundations of beauty, wonder, awe to locate the source of music and the grammar of song. Or that was the idea. All […]
Broken chrysalis
The world is being broken open, and you may break with it, like a chrysalis. This is one way we heal–breaking down whatever separates us from the whole. So rupture the cocoon of factory-mind, emerge resplendently winged. Take flight, by submitting to all that lies beyond this sugared shell spun like a spell around your […]
Stories for the love of earth
We need children who love the earth unconditionally. Let the stories you tell your small one seed the ecology of her imagination. Go far beyond the arid fields sown with concepts, statistics, theories, information and labels about the natural world. Harness your heart to fairy-tales and myths, fables and anecdotes and journey with your child […]
Seeing a phantom
My little boy sees a woman in his room at night, a phantom, an apparition. She’s old and she scares him, though she sits there in stillness, watching him. I will not ask her to leave. I want to help my son know her better, to have the courtesy of thanking her for stopping by. […]
Releasing expectations so your child can grow
Suddenly your child is not who you think she was. She used to seek your presence then suddenly she is more remote. She was once a calm and content child and suddenly she is unruly, wild and angry. She would fall asleep without a fuss and now she refuses to go to bed at all. […]
Let your child teach you how to move
Why did I tell my youngest boy to sit still at dinner? What possible reason would make sense here? “You can hurt yourself if you fall backwards.” “Your body needs to be calm while eating.” “You’re distracting others from their food.” Yes, sure, possibly, perhaps, maybe. More likely it’s because as a child I myself […]
You are not a father, not a mother
You are not a father or a mother. You are not a carpenter or a yoga teacher or a gardener. You are not a role-player, a work-title, a position or a label. You’re a spider. A fool. A rain drop. You are a nebula. A becoming. A being. A part of a greater whole. Easy […]
Turn your family into a rebellious island of sanity
Start the revolution by making your family home a rebellious island of sanity and insane possibility. Create a home that’s your getaway, a place so good, so relaxing, so full of life that you have no desire to fly off to another distant promised land on a holy-day at an all-inclusive coddling factory. Tend the […]
Lifeline
A ship trails a lifeline in its wake for the safety of its passengers. It’s a precaution wise captains take, drawing on thousands of years’ experience with the high seas. The latest breathing technique, meditation video, yoga posture or parenting tool is of little use when your 8 year old is sulking, your 4-year old […]
Withhold or flow
Family energy stops flowing when you withhold your inner life. You might want to hide your endless worry from your overworked wife. You’re secretly fuming that your husband has left his underwear on the floor again. Or you hesitate to show your joy on a day that your partner is in pain. When you withhold, […]
R.I.P. love
Drama doesn’t fan passions, it kills love. When every joint decision becomes a battle, you all lose. Bills, vacations, renovations, investments, bedtimes, discipline, meals. It gets too exhausting to put on the armor every time you have to reach an agreement. Sooner or later, one of you surrenders, and the other claims victory. And the […]
Shoes, treasures and the true meaning of discipline
Your child isn’t listening to you. You can’t make her do as you tell her. And that can be wildly frustrating. There’s a choice here–do you enforce or do you yield? Enforcing is more of the same–power over, authoritarian parenting, hierarchies, right and wrong. But yielding, isn’t that giving up? Not if you take a […]
Validation is a fertilizer
Timely validation helps our child master herself. When we notice that she can now safely handle a knife, we help her integrate this new skill. When we decide our child can now cross the street on his own, he gets to practice his increased capacity for autonomy. Validation is a timely fertilization of emergent growth […]
Everything in nature needs rest
Everything rests if we don’t mess with it. Deer rest under trees, digesting their food. In late summer the blue tits hang out on branches just swaying with the wind, watching the clouds go by. Our cat does nothing but rest–he’s merged with the sofa cushions. Yet so many of us have scheduled rest right […]
The cost of privacy is the loss of intimacy
Privacy always comes at a cost. Privacy is keeping everything to ourselves. Drawing the curtains and hiding our struggles and bewilderment to the world. Most of us keep parts of ourselves private even to ourselves–plunging them deep into our subconscious. Maybe we keep our feelings and thoughts private from our child. We might keep other […]