I Had A Dream...

Have you ever had a crazy dream that somehow somehow becomes a reality? There have been so many times over the last year or so when I have had to stop and pinch myself, hardly able to believe we have managed to do what we have managed to do. As many of you know, I and some fabulous people have spent the last few years creating something so ginormous and mad that it hardly seems possible that normal folk like us could actually do such a thing.

We made a school. Like, an actual, real school, with students. The hilarious part is that any teacher that had me in their class would pale at the thought of me of all people being involved in setting up and running a school. I did not like school and school did not like me. If I had a euro for every time I was told I was 'a square peg in a round hole'...

However, this is a school with a difference, and while there are many the world over,  it’s the first of its kind in Ireland. The difference is there is no curriculum, no classes, no teachers per se, the students decide how they want to spend their time, and for any of you not familiar with this concept, right now I am sure there are a million questions firing off in your brain, like can they still go to college? (Yes they can and do!) How do they learn? I could happily get up on my soapbox now and ‘talk for Ireland’ as they say, but you’d be much better informed if you read any of the articles linked below.

People ask what a typical day is like for our community, and there is no one answer to that. Every day is different, but you can guarantee there will definitely be cooking, games, conversation, exploring, reading, sharing, dreaming, cleaning, negotiating, building, making, drawing, wondering, creating, running, climbing, bouncing, questioning, honing, messing, contemplating, and a million other unquantifiable activities, all of which adds up to learning that is based on the individuals terms and needs, which in turn creates a vibrant, busy, active environment which is both exciting and fun, but also challenging in the best sense of the word. Phew!

Every day I am more and more convinced of what we are doing, all my apprehensions and wobbly moments of terror are a thing of the past, and I believe in this with no doubts whatsoever. Every day I am blown away by how these children and young adults, who having been given trust and freedom and responsibility, are striding forward, taking confident leaps towards their future, with such joy and determination (and challenges too, of course).

The thing is, we are self-funded, we do not receive a penny from the government, and now that we are a charity (CHY 22018) we can accept donations and we are beginning to look at fundraising. So, here is something I have never done before:

If you are so inclined, we would be delighted if you wanted to donate to our cause, (or buy us a building! We also have a growing waiting list and will need a new home sometime in the next couple of years) or even just share this with family and friends and ask them to share it on too. Our Donate page is here https://www.idonate.ie/3731_wicklow-sudbury-school.html

Every little helps!

For some further reading you can start here:

Sir Ken Robinson on parents obsession with sending their children to college - article, and TED Talk.

Dr. Peter Gray on the importance of play - for mental health, and happiness.

Sudbury staff on education - patience and the long game, and the fear of falling behind.

More on our website here - Wicklow Sudbury School, and our Facebook page.

Where My New Story Began.

I want to tell you a story. Actually, I'm re-telling this story, because this post is four years old now, originally on my Milkmoon blog, and this project is celebrating five years, which is incredible to me. But I'm sharing again because I am so darn proud of what we have made, and how it has continued to grow and evolve and attract more and more people who want something more in their lives than neighbours they barely know to say hello to. This is genuine community, meeting our human need for social connectedness in a way most of us had forgotten.
My dream is to see this grow, to become a community of communities that support one another, that also meets our human needs for food, shelter, energy, livelihoods. I hope to share here, over the next few months, a taste of the kind of things that we are up to here in our little stretch of Irish coast.

But for now, this is where it began:

December 2013:
Sometimes Life amazes me.

Picks me up by my tail and whirls me around a bit, then deposits me somewhere unexpected and never-seen-before, and so, a bit ruffled, and maybe even somewhat bedraggled, I pick myself up and dust myself off, check for injuries, and then Proceed With Caution. It doesn't happen very often in life that there is a significant change, I mean, a really, really big one. Usually it's the slow meander along the winding little pathways, with occasional wanderings off into dead ends and loop-the-loops which bring you right back to where you started. And there are lovely woodlands along the way, with leafy green and yellow light dancing up there above you, and sometimes there are banks of the sweetest flowers nodding their heads in the balmy breeze, and sometimes there are puddles of muddy water you have to wade through in your favourite shoes, or stones that trip you up or find their way into your shoe and hurt your feet. But sometimes it turns out that the little beaten track you are on suddenly opens up into Wonder, a great grassy plain with a smooth road and the sea sparkling in the distance, and suddenly everything feels Right, and Good, and you find yourself skipping along, kicking up your heels and skirts, and warmth blooms in your heart.

Sometimes Life amazes me.

And I find myself doing something I could never have dreamt of, only a few months ago. And the phrase, In My Element, suddenly has meaning. 

A few months before we moved to this town we began meeting weekly with a bunch of rather splendid folks who had a rather splendid idea about what this town needs, and so, we have spent almost a year now, talking talking talking about just what that might be, and slowly something began to take shape, and then it began to grow, and to our collective amazement we are now in the midst of Something Splendid that is now fluttering out there, above our heads, stretching it's gossamer wings and testing the air. 

We have no idea where it will take us, or what it will bring, but it is exciting and inspiring, and speaking in a voice that, it turns out, many people can, and want to, hear.

We are part of a growing community co-operative that is still finding that voice, but that is strong and clear and determined. We started out as a wholefood buying club, and then we put on an event, a vegetarian feast with music and dancing and singing, and we started to tell people about what we were doing, and all around us these little lights began to go on, in people's eyes and hearts, as they listened to what we were saying, and they began to add their voices too, and now we find ourselves here, with a gathering crowd of good intentioned, hopeful folks who know that this is the way forward. Sharing our resources, our skills, our experience, sharing those tender seedling ideas that we carry around in our hearts, sometimes for years, not knowing what to do to help it grow, because some things need more than one person to develop and grow into that wondrous something that has untold potential. But then, when we gather together, and begin to talk, magic happens, things do begin to grow, and faster than you could have imagined. And we all realise that it is possible to do things differently than we are told. It is possible to do business another way, that things don't always have to involve money, or multinational companies, or foreign businesses, that we have everything we need right here on our doorstep. We have the community we need, right here in our town. And you know what? So do you!

The most exciting thing we have discovered is that as soon as you begin to speak, to ask for what you need, you find it's right there, down the street from you, in your community, and it has been all along. There is a network of amazing people all around you who want the same things for themselves and their families that you do, and all you need is a place to come together to talk. A Common Ground to talk about the common ground you share, the back to basics, real, stuff, like how to feed your family, how to provide a real and rich experience for your children of what the world really is, and how people really do want to help one another, because it benefits us all, in the end. And in doing so, we discover how to pare away the unnecessary, stifling, consumer mentality we are all infected with, and to get real again, connect with people in a heartfelt way that brings untold riches of the kind we haven't felt since childhood. 

Last Saturday evening we hosted another event, this time a pop-up restaurant, a seated, four course, vegetarian meal for 30 folks, in a studio in what was once a factory that made the rather famous Beverley Bags in the 50's and 60's, and I found myself In My Element. Seeing all these people, many of them strangers to one another, gathered together and talking talking talking, connecting, sharing food and drink and laughter, stories and ideas and intentions, well, I thought my heart would burst with happiness.

It's all true, you know, what we know in our hearts; that we all want the same thing in the end. A safe place, with love and support, a community that lifts us all up, collectively nurturing and sustaining us, and that carries us forward into a hopeful future where we are doing things the way we want to.

Together.

–*–

Local friends, and anyone interested, you can find us,

Common Ground, Bray, on Facebook, here. 

And online on our website here. 

Awakening Thoughts on Imbolc ~ Lá Fhéile Bríde.

Things have been quiet around here ~ we bedded down, hibernating, dozing, dreaming in our winter snuggery. We watched as storm after storm whirled around us, (Brian, Caroline, Dylan, Eleanor, Fionn ~ some we were more intimate with than others) wind and snow and rain, though not as much of the white stuff as we'd have liked. The children lamented as they saw every other part of the country slip into Narnia~esque dreamscapes, while we languished on the edge of our temperate, rainswept grey eastern coast, the glistening snow visible right there on the mountains, just within reach.

Winter Solstice fire on the beach.

Winter walks.

Languishing, quiet. Until now.

Until the persistent piping of our neighbour, a little Great Tit who makes their home each year in a nearby Silverbirch tree, breaks through the sloth and torpor that we have sunk into these last couple of months. Like a clarion call, it pierces our Winter atrophy, rouses us, stirring something deep within us, some recognition of unfathomable, subterranean Knowing that is all around us ~ Nature just getting on with it regardless what we humans get up to. At the same time my body relaxes its cold weather holding tension, there is a quickening in my blood.

Winter walks.

And I am reassured.

And so, we loosen our scarves just a little, sniff the cold air, breathing in that delicate hint of something moving in the air, our extrasensory ears divining the first trickle of sap rising beneath our feet.

Winter walks.

It is time for new beginnings, for dusting down and shaking out our hibernating nests, for waking what is sleeping in us. Like Mole, we suddenly long to scrabble our way up to the sunlight and roll in a warm meadow. And as the evenings stretch themselves, reaching their fingers towards that first glimmer of extra light, the warm meadows of summer beckon us and we too leap forwards in the simple joy of living and the delight of spring.

So here's to Imbolc, officially the first day of Spring here ~ Happy Brighid's Day to you all!

Tig an gheimhreadh dian dubh

Gearradh lena ghéire

Ach ar Lá ‘le Bríde

Gar dúinn Earrach Éireann.

The house of winter is very dark

Cutting with its sharpness

But on Brigid’s Day

Spring is near to Ireland.