This Is Us Now.

Those of you who were here with me in Blogland in the days that I was over at Milkmoon will remember a gaggle of small, wild children, a whispering meadow by the sea. There were bonfires in the garden, fairy houses under the trees, a marshland filled with chattering birds. We shared our dear patch of earth with lizards in the grass, jackdaws in the chimney, and dustly moths on the walls in the sunlit halls. Our days were filled with the deep wanderings and wonderings of a mother mothering, and of young humans figuring out the path that lay ahead of them, side by side, as life unfolded before them, grass breathing in their ears, salt on their tongues, all under a great, big beautiful sky.

When we had to leave that beautiful croílár, our heartland, seven years ago, life changed in so many ways, aside from the obvious environmental one, and it was kind of like stepping into what we thought was a boat on a river but turned out to be a rollercoaster. The first five years were tough - really, really tough. Three of those four wildlings went into freefall, their anchorage unmoored just as they hit those challenging adolescent years. And add into the mix the abrupt changes to our day to day life brought on by me having to go back to work for the first time in their lives, just when they really needed the stability of me being there. Yes, it was tough.

But the first summer in our new, urban home was wonderful. It was a hot one, and the young teens relished the newfound freedom of public transport, of all the exciting things that living in a town for the first time in their lives brings. The only blemish was that Jay was working in Australia and ended up having to stay there for the full seven weeks of the summer holidays (this is unusual - he travels a lot for work but it’s usually two or three weeks at a time). My way of coping was to go to the beach, pretty much every day, and even though we missed him like crazy, it was a wonderful time together for myself and the kids. 

And even though the intervening seven years were our toughest yet, we have come out the other side, we are all still here together, well on the road to wellness. Our children are almost-grown, mostly independent, with loves and lives of their own. Most days I find it’s just me and the youngest home together, as Jay still travels with work, for now. And while I am completely in love with seeing their wings unfold, watching as they test them out and take to the sky, tentatively foraying into their own beautiful lives, there is also, of course, a sadness that comes with this. There is a strange pull on my heart even though I am happy to see them become more and more independent, I feel the loss of our time together.

And then, these dark times visit us all, and I find myself in a strange mirror-place, at home again with my four dearlings, and Jay in Australia again for as many weeks as the last time mentioned above - in all his years travelling, this is only the second time he has been away for that length of time. It doesn’t escape my notice that we are coming to the end of a seven year cycle - literally to the day, bookended by Jay’s unusually long stints on the other side of the world. I cannot help but wonder what it means…

So, here we are, counting the days, hoping he gets home safely, and so very grateful for this time together again. I am savouring every moment, so aware that this should never have happened, not like this. But we are here together, playing, talking, working side by side, hanging out, sharing every meal together, and in the midst of all the heartbreaking stories we are hearing from around the world, in the midst of so much devastation, I humbly give thanks for this unexpected gift we have all been given. 

So, I will document these precious days of ours, slipping back, for what may only be a moment, into our Milkmoon dream, for in our bones we are longing for those open skies and whispering grass, and a time when the world seemed a far safer place to be.

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.

Mapping; finding. Our Mother Map.

“This we need to know: how to participate creatively in the wildness of the world about us. For it is in the wild depths of the universe and our own being that the greater visions must come.”

Thomas Berry

Today the rains came. I mean really came ~ buckets and buckets of it, the air almost white with it  at times. Just when we thought summer had arrived, the blue sky and balmy breeze of the last few days has been swept away as a covering of torrential rain clouds is drawn up over our heads from the southern seas, (though it's still balmy enough to have the windows wide open which gives the whole thing quite a tropical, monsoon~y feeling, which I love).
But you know I love the rain, any time of year. Its like a pause button. There's something reflective about it, turning our thoughts inward, giving space to dwell and mull and ruminate, and all those other analogous words.

Clare Island
April 2017

Ten years ago, when I started writing at Milkmoon, I was deeply immersed in mother-land, swimming in the milky waves of life with small ones aboard, and completely in my element. To this day I am slightly baffled and bemused when I hear Jay talk about how life~changingly terrifying and bewildering it was for him becoming a father. For me it was like slipping into a warm sea and discovering I was, in fact, a Selkie. Those years were a dream, not without their difficulties, of course, but the parenting part I was comfortable figuring out as we went along.

I have maintained my mother~sense. It leads. Always. But I know we don't always trust ourselves, do we? We are bombarded on a daily basis with other people's opinion and advice, on absolutely everything, unsolicited or not, and sometimes it's actually bloody hard to know when it is actually our own voice speaking and not some (occasionally) well meaning 'latest research'. Sometimes I long for the quiet space between words, thoughts, experiences, that our ancestors had. The time to listen to our gut, to know and trust what we know.

Clare Island
April 2017

In a podcast by Charles Eisenstein that I recently listened to, he spoke about how we have lost our animal instinct around food, we no longer know what our bodies are telling us and so we eat things our brain tells us we want but that our bodies would not if we were to ask them. Isn't this really just a good example that can be applied to any aspect of modern living? How many articles have you read about how we have become detached from the natural world we live in? How many people have written about this topic, lamenting it's loss, or simply stating it as a fact? We no longer know the world we actually, physically live in. The one that is beneath the enchantment that is our consumer focused idea of what the world is. (The truth is, take away one or two key man made elements (electricity, the internet) and the illusion disappears, and what then?)

And we are suffering for it. Our children are suffering for it. Our planet is suffering for it.

Clare Island
April 2017

Carol Black has written about one aspect of this, an aspect that is close to my heart, explained in simple yet powerfully clear words just what it is we are doing.

"When we first take children from the world and put them in an institution, they cry. It used to be on the first day of kindergarten, but now it’s at an ever earlier age, sometimes when they are only a few weeks old. "Don’t worry," the nice teacher says sweetly, "As soon as you’re gone she’ll be fine. It won’t take more than a few days. She’ll adjust." And she does. She adjusts to an indoor world of cinderblock and plastic, of fluorescent light and half-closed blinds (never mind that studies show that children don’t grow as well in fluorescent light as they do in sunlight; did we really need to be told that?) Some children grieve longer than others, gazing through the slats of the blinds at the bright world outside; some resist longer than others, tuning out the nice teacher, thwarting her when they can, refusing to sit still when she tells them to (this resistance, we are told, is a “disorder.”) But gradually, over the many years of confinement, they adjust. The cinderblock world becomes their world. They don’t know the names of the trees outside the classroom window. They don’t know the names of the birds in the trees. They don’t know if the moon is waxing or waning, if that berry is edible or poisonous, if that song is for mating or warning." 

~ Carol Black

 Read her wonderful full article here.

Clare Island
April 2017

Most parents I know have pretty good instincts when it comes to their children. After all, it is already mapped out for us, in our bones and gut, there for us like a safety net when we need it. It's there even when we can't see it. It's a map that was drawn by our mother's mothers and their mothers before them. Each line carefully added as experience drew their hand, in beautiful curves that echo a sleeping child's cheek, and sharp, painful angles that hurt but are overcome, and without knowing it we are adding to it day by day for our children. Some lines reinforcing what is already there, some finding new inlets, islands, mountains, valleys, and places that cannot be seen or found other than by closing your eyes and looking into your heart. But all of it tracing the outline of something that is deeply inherent in us, that is deeply rooted in our ancestral culture, in our place on this planet, wherever that may be. And if we know how to listen, those whispers tell us the truth we already know.

Clare Island
April 2017

From the time I was a child, I was always a little outside things, always in the edges, never the centre. I was defiantly different, even though this was often a difficult and lonely place to be, but I had no choice, for I had a very loud internal voice that had no problem overriding those other questioning voices when it really mattered.
But when I became a parent, for the first time in my life I was aware of that inner voice, aware my instinct was louder than those other voices. It was like suddenly being released and being able to turn my head to see who it was that had been there beside me all those years, that voice in my ear; and it was me. But my voice was not just one voice, but generations of my mothers, the voices that many of them most likely never had in life.

Sandycove
May 2017

But lets be honest. Sometimes those other voices, call them cultural, societal, whatever you want, they drown out that other inner instinct that knows what is best for our children, and without questioning it we step in (to the straight) line and put our heads down.
We consume, we buy, we don't think about the cost to the planet, to humanity of every single thing we use because we would go mad with guilt and grief. We just carry on.

We send our children to school even when they cry because we don't know what else to do. For if we don't know that a question needs to be asked, how will we know to ask it? 
And do we know where to find answers we can trust?
But ask the why, and the why and the further why, and the neverending why, until you get to the heart of it and find either the true-for-you answer, or you find there is nothing there after all.
You'd be surprised just how often there is simply nothing there - no substance to a cultural belief you've always held as true.

Sandycove
May 2017

Outside my window, seagulls are crying in the rain like emergency sirens, echoing around the hillside, the alarm in their voices has my ancestral antenna twitching. I cannot ignore it.

It's time to listen to ourselves again, my friends. Listen to your children, to the wildness in them that still knows themselves and what they and the world needs, that still speaks the language of Anima mundi.

Every day we tell ourselves a story and we believe it. Every word.
So what is it you want to believe? That you can be true to yourself and live a life that is authentically yours? It's not easy taking that first step, but that's the hardest one. After that it gets easier. Tell your story to whoever will listen, and miracles will happen. You will find others who feel the same, and that's when magic happens.

We create the world we want to live in. Every day.

And here's something to ponder : you are already doing it, so what is that world going to be?

Sandycove
May 2017

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

– Alfred, Lord Tennyson

All That Is Good And Beautiful.

‘...fairytales are true.’ He describes a way of looking, seeing right through reality to the truths beyond. He is one of the beyonders, those wise enough and willing enough to yearn to dwell tenderly in the metaphoric world.

~ Jay Griffiths on Italo Calvino.

Storytelling has long been a theme in my life, but it’s only in recent years that I have come to fully understand the importance and significance of stories in our lives. We tell our stories to one another, and on some deep level we understand things more profoundly, it’s how we make sense of the world. It’s how we are changing the world. It has become more and more clear to me just how powerful it can be. In sharing our stories with one another, in the act of Telling, we gain insights into our own understanding of the world, and so does the listener. It helps to dismantle the old story, making room for the new one.

Springtime in Wicklow.

A couple of  weeks ago I found myself thinking a great deal about that big theme in our stories, Love. I was thinking about just how essential it is in our roles as adults, how important it is as a ground zero for any and all things we may ever share with our children. The power it has to give meaning to something is not to be overlooked. I understand, of course, that it is a very fundamental need in us as humans, to need a meaning for things, and children know this and trust this instinct because it comes from themselves. And when they trust themselves, their instinct is almost always Love.

We were lucky enough recently to spend a weekend in the company of Rob Greenfield who was in Ireland to start his European tour, which he kicked off with a talk in our lovely community here in Bray, Common Ground. I feel so grateful that my children have opportunities like this to meet and talk to people like Rob and see the difference one person can make, how our choices every day have an impact, and we have the power to choose, every day. It’s far more powerful than coming from mum or dad! Hearing about his adventures, and the challenges he has set himself, was so inspiring for them. They were amazed that it was as simple as me reaching out to him when I heard he would be in Ireland, and the next thing he is sitting at our table, breaking bread with us, and speaking with such honesty and authenticity about his life and his ideas. I know the 13 year old and his friend were particularly inspired, and came away with new eyes for the world.

Rob Greenfield talking at Common Ground.

Rob spoke about the world as it is today, he spoke about how we all have choices, every day, and the impact those choices have. He told stories of just how far he discovered we need to go in order to truly address the brokenness of what we are living with. But he told all of these stories with such love and warmth, and without judgement, that we were left feeling inspired rather than guilty and overwhelmed.  As Rob spoke to the room that Sunday in Common Ground, I couldn’t help but be aware of the love and openness his message was both given and received with. Everyone was there to be inspired, and honestly, it’s the biggest attendance we have had for an event to date. From start to finish, the generosity that was shown was incredible and heartening. From members getting stuck in to our annual spring clean Meitheil work party (nothing like an incentive to put a date on it!) on the Friday and Saturday, to those who helped organise the room on the day, the dishwashers, the techie people, the food bringers, and those who donated to Rob’s non-profit charity fund, and of course to Rob himself in so many ways.

Chatting with Rob in our lovely reclaimed forest garden at Common Ground,

We had a community pot luck dinner after, and as always there was enough food to feed everyone, and a chance for people to meet one another, to have conversations, to share ideas and information about different things that are happening in their area, because that is what it is all about - sharing - an expression of love and openness and authenticity - something that can be hard to find in so many walks of life, but often for teenagers and young adults in particular.

Early morning in the mountains.

And there is the kernel of my thoughts and mullings and ruminations these last couple of days: now more than ever, the importance of those three things, love, openness and authenticity in how we communicate with our children, and by ‘our’ I mean the children of our time, whether they belong to us or not. It’s a scary time we live in, especially for those who are coming of age right now, and we need to instill a sense of hope and power in them. This might seem obvious to most of us, but are we actually expressing that to them on a daily basis?

And what about the idea of connectivity? When it comes to ‘the world today’, and the endless list of imminent crisis’ that always seem to be inescapably looming,  it’s too easy to go down the road of 'us and them', to feel overwhelmed, and to ignore the simple Truth that we are all part of the same organism.

Team work!

There’s an important distinction between fighting for the sake of the fight (our own), and fighting for something bigger than ourselves. One is reactive, the other proactive. And  in both we have a responsibility.

It was so good to see love, openness and authenticity in action in Common Ground on that day. Everyone listening, rapt, drinking it in - the bigger ‘fight’ that does not need to be a fight, but Doing! Here is someone Doing, and we can all Do, we Do every day, but doing it with awareness and intention is what is important. There was a very clear coming together in the room that day, everyone there already Doing in their own way, and even though I am used to this because that is the very essence of Common Ground, it draws in people already there or looking for it, through my experience of the other hat I wear, the school one, I am reminded daily of the need to create a space for our younger folk to talk about these issues, to discover what they already know but cannot name.

Rewilding.

Throughout the journey away from traditional schooling that we’ve been on these last few years, I have become so aware of the challenge facing today's children, and their parents, and just how important it is that they are supported and listened to, and not given up on. It’s not enough to wait until they grow up and ‘cop on`. We owe ourselves the honour of being the best guides and mentors we can be, the Elders they so deserve, in order to ensure that when the time comes they can take the reigns with confidence and surety, and bring this new story to the next chapter.

They are the Beyonders, willing to dwell in the metaphoric world, to learn from the stories, from our mistakes.

They just need us to trust them so they learn to trust themselves.

The Theory of Letting Go.

"Kindled in earth, of a kind with all animals, kin to kittens, cubs and chicks, children are not aliens to wildness but akin to it, wild at the raw core. Their original fire is sparked by the embers of a world flame which also lights the peacock and the stars. Intimates of wildness, all of them." ~ Jay Griffiths, Kith

Yesterday was one of those days that arrives with it's own plan, an inkling the day before becomes a quiet certainty upon waking in the blue dark before dawn. Before my eyes were even open I knew I would be changing what I had planned to do that day, and so, instead of taking off without them for the two days I decided to go with my younger two boys on the adventure that had been planned for them for my absence. 

We gathered a little gang and we drove up into the mountains, marvelling as always that we have this right here on our doorstep, a mere 40 minute drive away. Every single day I love these mountains from afar, I see them each morning and afternoon as I travel to school, framed as they are now by glorious autumn maples that line the roads like merry medieval flags leading the way towards them. Some days it's hard not to bypass the turn for school and just keep going. These great tellurian mother's arms that encircle this town of ours here on the edge of the sea, I love them from afar each day, and some days I just have to go to them.

We arrived and we walked down the mountain into the valley to the lake, a winding road that found the children racing, roaring, tearing onwards ferociously as though trying to outrun all those indoor, sedentary hours of school and darkening evenings; that October-knowing in our blood and bones that the light is fading from our year, hastening us towards the dark point, turning our thoughts inwards, deeper, and we just have to inhale as much of it as we possibly can to keep us buoyant in the dark months ahead. 

There's something about all that wide open space that allowed them to just let out their inner Wild Things, yelling like demented moose across the valley to hear their voices yell back, (to the bemusement of the herd of deer grazing peacefully below), chasing, running, tumbling, like the pack of cubs they are.

This photo here, this was the moment of arriving, of stepping into the cool waters of Lough Dan after the race down the mountain, when they took a moment to take a breath, to reflect, and just be there.
In all the tumult and joyous riot of the getting there, I found myself thinking of a conversation earlier in the week with our youngest, aged 8, and his unexpected response to something I was sure he'd love: a lovely video of a child his age doing parkour in a purpose built learning gym, something he dreams about doing. Instead of being sparked and inspired by it, and running out the door to climb a wall or a tree or my car, as he would have just a few months ago, his first response was 'What if you fail?' Can you imagine my shock? Those words have never been uttered in this house before and I have to say it kind of broke my heart a little. When we talked a bit more and agreed that to get as good as the boy in the video you'd have to 'fail' (fall) quite a few times, he then told me that the people who owned the gym would be 'blamed' if the kids fall and hurt themselves, and it all came out then that this is what they are told in school. All the time.
Let's just say I am quite impressed with how I managed to not react as I wanted to...
(There may have been steam coming out of my ears as I smiled at him.)

It brought to mind the many articles I have been reading on Another Way of late, which talk about the mollycoddling that we are guilty of, and the affect this will have on our children as they grow up. Of how insane things are getting in the US around the issue of children being free to walk around by themselves, (seriously, just consider that for a moment). 

I've always considered myself defiantly permissive about letting my children roam, play on their own away from us and out of sight, light and tend fires, make decisions, rely on themselves...I could go on. But I do realise it's pretty much impossible today for our children to be as free as we want them to be, as they would want to be. It's so difficult to live in such a fearful society and not be tainted by it in some way, despite our best intentions. Every day I have to ignore that faint but squawking, hysterical mother-voice in my ear as my boys play out in the fairly busy street, cycling, chasing one another, and trust that they will be safe. It's not easy. But we have to do it, in spite of the neighbours grumblings (yes they do, on occasion). 

And I have even fallen prey to it myself. 

As we made our way back up the mountainside, their energy still, somehow, boundless, I actually heard myself warning them to stop; stop flinging themselves into the ferns, look there's big boulders hidden there; no, not on the other side either, there's a cliff! 

Honestly, they were in no real danger, yet I jumped in as though they were. Preempting a possibility. Just in case. Within minutes I heard myself and I was dismayed and I shut up, but following as it did so soon after my chat with my wee lad it really brought me up short. Am I doing this a lot? When did it start to creep in? Surely I would have noticed. And I am sure I am not the only one out there who thinks the title of 'helicopter parent' doesn't apply, (and of course it really doesn't in so many ways), and yet....for all our best intentions perhaps we really are all getting caught up in this? It permeates our culture so thoroughly, how on earth can we remain immune?

We have a responsibility to these small folk in our care, to trust them, and to trust ourselves. To know when to stand back and let them figure it all out, and eventually fly away on wings that are robust enough to take them where they need to go, for we know we do them no favours by hovering to make sure they are doing it right, do we? 

There is no doubt that they are well capable and willing, if we let them. 

We need to be those tellurian mothers, solid as the earth, arms out to shield and hold our charges but from a distance. 

And as they grow, some days we will be hidden by rain or mist or cloud, but always here for those days when they need to go to us, to be reassured. 

And even when we are not in sight, the knowledge that we are there is all the surety needed.

First We Get Away.

This post was originally written back in October for Another Way. Myself and Martin Hodges, of Square Sunshine, had set up a Facebook Group under this name, which is proving to be the most active thing amongst all my social media. It's a place where people can share their thoughts, and posts they find online, around the topic of educating our children. This is a subject that has been taking up a lot of my headspace over the last year in particular, and one I will be writing about here regularly, and one which, clearly, a lot of people have a lot to say about. Parents are passionate about this, about what they perceive to be wrong with today's system, and the conclusion we are coming to is we are going to have to sort it out for ourselves.
So, my ranting sparked some lively connections, and a bunch of us like-minded folk got together one weekend to just get outdoors with our children and eat, play, love, and just hang out together. It was great. And out of it I wrote the following piece - the first time I'd written a blogpost in the best part of a year, which is what has finally led to the existence of this Thing.

~*~

Last weekend, we drove out into the autumn mountains, the winding road taking us up away from the sea and into the wild wilds of Wicklow, down into deep, green valleys where the trees are just beginning to turn, that first melting of green into yellow and ochre and brown. 

Down we came, down the steep roads, across the rushing river, and the place we found ourselves arriving at felt like a refuge, literally the last house in the valley. No electricity, no running water, no phone signal. Perfect.

Here was a gathering of folk, families much like ourselves, many of whom had never met one another before but who were there because they wanted to talk, to connect with others who shared the same concerns of today: how do we guide our children, and ourselves, through this very new experience of parenting the first ‘touch-screen generation’, or Digital Natives, as they are being called. In the last couple of years having two older teenagers no longer gives me the sure footing of the experienced parent, as our knowledge garnered from parenting them in the late 90’s and into the first decade of the 2000’s, doesn’t cover this most recent, all encompassing development, (and indeed leaves us totally unprepared for what the teens are experiencing, but that’s another days discussion). 

Alongside this growing concern, is a strange dichotomy, whereby this digital age is, on the positive side, allowing us to put our voice out into the ether, and to hear common voices that others are putting out too. Suddenly topics that need to be addressed are gaining ground. Topics that before may have felt like a voice in the wilderness for those that were searching for communal ground and a place to be heard. Suddenly we are finding one another. We are connecting with one another, discovering we are not alone in our questions. For me now, the questions and uneasy feelings are about something we have never questioned before: our education system. And how does it fit in with this new app-for-everything age. It’s confusing, right? The pros and cons, the good and the bad, the amazing advantages and the horrendous disadvantages of this digital age. How do we find the right balance? 

Here’s something I don’t understand: we want the newest gadget, the latest update, the most recent version, of everything else in our lives, yet why are we not looking for the same for our children? There are countless writings out there on the latest studies on how children learn best, and yet, as the wonderful Ken Robinson points out, we are still using an education system that was devised for the industrial age, an antiquated system who’s purpose is to turn out workers. 

We know better. We do. But it’s so huge no one wants to tackle it. 

But what if we did? Us parents, and educators, what would we do? What are we already doing? It’s as simple as starting a conversation, because that is where the seeds are sown. If you have read this far, chances are you are on this journey with us already. 

Last weekend we started a conversation. We talked, shared ideas, and who knows where it will lead, but it is definitely a beginning. And here on this blog, and over in our Another Way Facebook group, we've started a conversation, and although we are all scattered around the world, we are all thinking the same thing, and that's what reassures me that change is on it's way.
And in the meantime we can get our children off those screens and outside into nature, back into the wild where they know how to learn without being told how or when or what goals they have to reach in order to be deemed successful. We owe them that much at least.

So, back in the valley, while the grown ups warmed themselves up, cooked up some food to share, got the fires going, and talked up a storm, our children ran wild. They forged the river, chased one another in the dying light as the sun sank behind the towering mountainsides, and even the darkness did not slow them down. Later, before we made our way to our candlelit beds, we sat by the river, around the campfire, and the conversations continued, our thoughts and ideas carried along with the rushing water, like prayer flags taking our wishes and dreams to the future. 

In the morning there is frost, the gorse festooned with dewey spiderwebs, a spider city revealed to us as though our time here has granted us special Nature Powers to see, really see the world around us. Driving home the road steams, mist drifting into the sunlight, and the trees across the valley seem to fall away from us, as though we are skybound. We feel energised, renewed, cleansed. In the back of the car, Billy (age 7) cannot stop talking, and do I imagine his voice is lighter and clearer than yesterday? There has been no mention of the iPad in the time we’ve been here. ‘When we get home can we smash the iPad with a hammer?!’ he calls out with slightly manic glee in his voice. There’s a moments silence and we all burst out laughing at his uncharacteristic drama.

And as we pause at a crossroads on the road, turning towards home but for a moment gazing at the further mountains that seem all too inviting,  all at once we see them, a pair of sika deer hidden among the trees, the dappled light almost fooling our eyes. They pause in the dim glade, gaze at us shyly, and for that moment we are held captive, connected to this creature who’s curious eyes meet ours with calm acceptance. 

Eyes shining, hearts singing, we make for home, yet he takes us with him when he turns and melts into the deep green of the woods. 

~*~

Edit: Since writing this we have set up a more local group called Wicklow Hedge School for anyone in the area interested in taking this further. You can find us here: Wicklow Hedge School.