Starting the year off right

Well tomorrow is the end of the first full week back to school.   My time at Sophia's Hearth was so well-spent.   I felt I was foundering all year last school year.  I just couldn't find my groove.   The Sophia's Hearth program really seems to have set my feet in the right direction.  The Lead Nursery Teacher, Kerry has taken last year's experience and made a bunch of changes, that dare I say at the end of the first week seem to have made a monumental difference.
1. There are no special needs children in the class
2. There are no more than 12 total children per day (2 assistants on those days)
3. The three-day children come Mon, Tues, Wed...Therefore the beginning of the week has more children instead of the end of the week when the teachers are tired.  
4. Thursday and Friday have only 9 children (1 assistant)
5. Bathroom time:  about 2 to 3 children only per assistant in the bathroom...instead of 5 per assistant
6. a love-seat sofa is in the classroom and some extra tables are no longer there
7. the snacks follow the grain of the day

These changes in addition to the work I did this summer seem to have really centered me.  I feel so much calmer, centered and plain...upright with good head space!  We have a large percentage of brand new to school young ones and I have to say there really wasn't a whole lot of crying.  This is my third year in the nursery and this year boasts the least crying in the first few weeks.   Last year I felt the crying (really loud, crying jags) went on for a month.  Actually I think it almost did.  

Here is the picture of the class last year...doesn't it look like ALOT of children and adults (and some of the children are missing)?

What resonates for me  from training is the concept of checking in with yourself.   It is so important to know where I am on the inside because I am working with children.  I have set a regimen for myself..Up at six..read verse of the day and meditation for the day from Spiritual Insights.  Then 30 minutes of Yoga.  I am particularly fond of Sharon Gannon and David Life's Jivamukti Yoga and have studied with them via DVD for 6 years now.  I use their Class for Busy People  (audio on my Ipod) on school mornings.  Curt usually gets himself up between 630 am and 7 am..He will hang out on the couch while I finish stretching.  We'll talk and cuddle.  Then I make us breakfast and we get dressed for the day and then are out the door.  (Dirty breakfast dishes wait in the sink until I come home>)  Lunches are packed the night before.

Then I get us to school between 8 am and 8 15 am.   School ends at 315pm.  After school, we have snack at 3 30 pm and outside play in the garden at home.  Dinner happens at 5pm... then bath time, book-time and bedtime at 7 pm.   This spiritual work in the morning is really getting me in the right frame of mind for the work and for my time with Curt.  

Then I am attending the first half of Faculty Meeting once a week and the Book Study is on Theosophy by Rudolph Steiner.  I am also reading Cosmic Memory by Steiner....and a bunch of other books that were required reading for the summer course.  I hope to finish them up soon and blog about them so I can start the required reading for the November Session at Sophia's Hearth.  I feel so immersed in study and I actually like it.   Steiner is a crazy read.  I was delving into the prologue to Theosophy during my break today and the author  was discussing how there is an actual way to read Steiner's writing.  How it reaches you on many levels.  The metaphor he used was that of a cookbook...One can read ...add a cup of sugar and stir in melted butter then add cinnamon and one is just getting the ingredients list in their head.  This is akin to..the body is composed of the etheric, the physical, the astral..and just making a mental note of the names.  But one can go beyond the cookbook knowledge and feel a metamorphosis on a larger scale.  Steiner ..the author continued, wrote in a way difficult to browse through so that the reader would be forced to higher levels of concentration.   Well I am paraphrasing..it was all much more articulate in the prologue.  I think I am feeling a change stirring.  
Namaste

Hoop Houses

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks.   School began on September 9th and that has pretty much trumped everything.  Also, the summer gardens have been ending.  I am very lucky to live in a cooperative apartment community where we have a fairly large common backyard and courtyard.  The backyard is available for garden plots and also has a nice area for the children complete with sandbox and jungle gym.  There is also picnic table seating and benches.  At the school where I work, last year's 3rd grade teacher had made cold frames for the children's garden plots.  They were way out of my league.  They were made from wood and old glass windows. Also the frames were cut on an angle.   But I really thought it would be great to have some fresh lettuce in November...so I thought I would look it up.  God Bless Google..I found this video on YouTUBE:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6bWeYCV53A.  After watching this, I really truly could envision myself creating one of these.  I even day dreamed about it.  I truly believe that is part of exercising the will...going through the "motions" in your head and seeing yourself doing what you want to accomplish.

Well young Curtis and I made a trip to Home Depot and got all the necessary tools and materials.   And I have to say I am pretty pleased with how the hoop house turned out.  I purchased the wrong width plastic sheeting, and had to overlap three strips of plastic...but I will tape those seams shut once the really cold winds start to blow.

Here are some shots of the hoop house and the backyard in general.  Enjoy:

The finished hoop house (There is actually lettuce sprouting up.  I also planted some Zinnias.  Wouldn't it be great to have some fresh cut flowers when it is chilly outside.

Here is a picture of the garden plot before the hoop house was placed upon it.  The wheelbarrow is full of the old vegetation from the summer garden.

This is Curt's garden .  One of our generous neighbors let him garden on the unused half of her plot.   Here are the resident garden gnomes. 

Here is the play area....The sandbox, benches and kinder gym.  

The cheap Adirondack knock-off chairs that are oh so comfy after a long day in the Waldorf Nursery.  It is great to just kick back in one of those with some knitting and watch the children play in the garden.   

I am really proud of this.  I had the idea to make these little vine houses for the children in the spring and even purchased the fake bamboo for the project..but it got so hot so quickly...I just didn't get to it.  But a neighbor asked me to water her gardens for three weeks this summer.  I agreed and one of the gardens was a potted garden that was overrun with morning glories.  Then I had a eureka moment.  So I set up the little pole house and started to train the already well-established morning-glories ..and lo and behold they took off.  The children love this little "hidey-hole."  

Here are the remnants from our corn and pumpkin garden.   The corn came up..about 14 stalks  and we even got some small stunted but delicious corn and two tiny pumpkins.  They look very nice on the nature table.  I hope we get some real pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns next year.  

Here is Curt and the "robot" he made from some bricks we found and dug out in the backyard.  There must have been a border a long time ago near the fence...but these bricks were buried and overgrown by the existing plantings there.  Curt found them and we spent two hours digging them up the other day...what fun.  Now if I could just convince folks here to let me put down a brick patio and place a very safe fire pit on there...we might truly have some autumn ambiance in the garden.  

See that octagon picnic table in the background...it is sooooo cool.  There is another garden gnome.  How did he get up there?  

I am so grateful for the green space here.  I grew up in the heart of the city and never had enough green space.  It's a shame the Curt and I are about the only two residents who regularly come out into the backyard.  The rest like to hang out in the court yard.  The courtyard has a concrete walkway...grass and trees and benches.  It is very nice...but there is a bit of an echo as it is surrounded by three four story buildings...and while the concrete is great for riding bikes...I prefer to have grass under my feet.  Oh well.  Curt and I do love the backyard...we have been known to spend 4 hours at a time out there.   

Blessings.

The Waking of the Human Soul and the Forming of Destiny

An excerpt from this book is printed in Spiritual Insights from WECAN Press.  This is another example of a recommended book from the Sophia Hearth Training Book List.  I am really finding this book fascinating.  After Yoga Practice in the Morning, I try to find the time to read the days verse from Calendar of the Soul and an excerpt from Spiritual Insights.  "And if we add a third phrase to the prayerful form, 'For my thinking I am grateful to the angels, and for speech I thank the archangels.' Then it would be, 'For my place within the sphere of physical and moral forces in earthly existence, I thank the archai, who have themselves received this power from even higher beings.' " ..."But the point of real importance is that, during sleep, we shall approach these three hierarchies of the angeloi, archangeloi, and archai in a worthy way."   The text goes on to say that how a human relates to these angeloi depends on how they act in their waking life...with regard to thinking, speaking, and right use of movement and moral will.  

These concepts really speak to me.  I have had an affinity for angels from a very young child.  I would have imaginary play with angel friends.  I hope to connect with them again as an adult.

Today involved a very very trying morning at the Cape May County Zoo.  I thought it would be a nice outing for myself, my soon to be five year old and my mother.  Well my Curtis was in a foul mood from the morning, and had a full blown temper tantrum in front of the giraffes.  I said many silent prayers to the angeloi.  After about a 30  minutes of me waiting patiently on a bench nearby while he screamed unreasonable demands at me. This was then followed by me moving him closer to the bench out of people's way whom he had starting throwing kicks at and telling him that this was a safe place to cry in.  I remained clam...I spoke softly...Finally I got him into my arms and he started to calm down.  Then I told him we needed to leave the zoo.  He didn't like that as we were only a third of the way through....but that's what happens when there's rudeness and tantrums...we leave.   He was calmer as I carried him on my back to the van.   Also, my mother did not interfere...which was definitely an act of god.   Thank you, angeloi, for helping me help Curtis.