Parenting, and growing up

Our precious babies have grown into little children now, both really pre-schoolers in this moment, though not for much longer, as dear Big Little heads off to school next year - starting on 2/2/22 no less!

So I've been reflecting a lot on their little little years now past. As I always do, but extra much.

In the very beginning, the wonderment of building a whole person from scratch, inside me! And then birthing them into the world, and realising already that at every step of the parenting journey there is a grief of ever-growing distancing, alongside the ever-growing love.

When my babes were born I wrote them each a song. Big Little's was finished on the journey home from hospital. Somehow Little Little's remains unfinished still, 3 1/2 years later - the joy of being a second child, I suppose.

Then getting to know them, intimately, day by day, watching them grow, and change, and learn, and along the way teaching me so much too.

Loving every inch of them, both figurative inches, and literal.

Singing this love to them: Little cheeks - listen or download on Soundcloud

Learning to be with them, just as they are, and alongside that, learning to be with me, be with me as a person, grown from a babe, to a child, then to an adult, and now somehow grown to someone apparently grown up enough to be a parent. (Really?! How can I continue to feel so unprepared...?!)

I have written a "Top tips" sheet, which includes some of the learning I have found along the way, much of which I wish I had known from the start.

We never stop growing do we. Even when we stop growing literally up.

I've been grieving lately for not raising my children fully immersed in a village, surrounded by elders, aunties, uncles, and a clan of children with whom to roam, wild and free, guided always by the wisdom of a deep rooted culture, with connection and togetherness ever present.

These last years especially have brought home the sense of isolation and loneliness I have felt really much of the time these years of early motherhood. 

Our culture of separation, busyness, and work work work just for the sake of work, keeping us apart.

Our desire for freedom of movement keeping us from all just being where we are, with the people around us known intimately and ongoing.

It feels like we need to be remembering how to get along with everyone again. Not just the people just like us. Everyone.

Strangely somehow now I feel I have finally found more true and deep connection and community through the enforced separations of recent times. The focus on all the ways we can connect brought into centre vision.

So here we are.

There is much in the dominant culture in need of healing, mending, repair, reparation.

This is one part.

I imagine the possibilities for the world when my children are grown all the way up. If they might have the opportunity to have children of their own, if they might choose.

How will it be? How could it be?

Through the Window (by Little Little)

We shall see. And we will bring to it what we can, from where we begin, here and now.

And for me, that means continuing to grow on my journey of imperfect parenting. 

Definitely with an intention for healing; and growing connection; mending, repair and reparation where needed; and learning, always; while teaching, and guiding, best I can, my little ones on their way; and finding, and growing, our village, so they can learn all that I cannot teach them on my own.

And meanwhile, I will continue to wrap them in Rainbows (listen or download on Soundcloud).

Sunflower, sunshine, water and rainbow (by Big Little)

Weeding out space for seeds to grow into flowers and fruit trees (by me)

To my through the screen friends, please be introduced to my behind the screen friends

Written December 2020. A long time coming...!

I would like to introduce you all, my through the screen friends, to my behind the screen friends. Please meet our 2020 resident little pardalote family, who have been busy variously nesting, flying, perching, hatching, hovering, hanging, hopping, feeding and "whit-whit"-ing and "tsch-tsch-tsch"ing outside the window behind my computer screen. I have been very grateful for all of you this past year my friends, both through the screen, and behind the screen.

I decided not to edit this first video as an exercise in not pandering to our desires for instant gratification. (In fact I also waited significantly longer to catch this lovely little hover.) Wait for it....... Enjoy the breeze in the bushes, and the *ahem* steadiness of my camera work. Aaaaaaand... (There is just one hover, so you can stop watching after pardalote departs stage right (or is it stage left...?). Or you can continue to the end, and enjoy listening to the "whit-whit" and the "tsch-tsch-tsch".)

I believe our little friends are spotted pardalotes. In researching pardalotes, I found this beautiful and sad piece about the unique nature of pardalotes and the broken and disappearing niche that they are holding onto amidst the ongoing destruction of their environment - our environment. So I am glad that this family have found a niche near us.

It was lovely to spend some time to just focus on my little feathered friends who have been such constantly intermittent companions these days in my makeshift lockdown Zoom office in the "palace"*, rather than feeling like I should be attending to a million things on the to do list. It was also really special to have a chance to get an extended really good look at my mostly very fast moving flitting friends by snapshotting them in the moment. Sometimes it feels important to prioritise such things. Slowing down. Taking a moment, a pause. Directing attention and spending time in appreciation of beauty and life. Soul nourishment. Especially when life is especially crazy and hectic, chaotic or unpredictable, or missing some of the special things in life usually present like company and connection IRL...

It has been a crazy year, that's for sure. A year sometimes for hanging on, and for holding on, like my little pardalote friends.

Hanging on and holding on for things to settle down, a chance to catch up on what on earth is going on anyway. A year for hanging on and holding on to all that is dear and precious, to all that matters. A year for hanging on and going along with the ride and seeing where it takes us, as unexpected twists and turns just keep on appearing. Hanging on and holding on to hope against fear of insanity prevailing. Hanging on and holding on to the feeling that maybe, just maybe, the tide really is turning. Hanging on and holding on to the vision of all that is good, growing. And hanging on and holding on to the ever growing and strengthening networks of people that are all agents for change, in so many ways. Including you all, my dear friends through the screen.

I'm still kind of figuring out the "whit-whit". It feels protective of the young, still growing in the nest. It sounds like an alarm. Sometimes it is constant! So then I wonder if it means something else... Perhaps it means many things. Maybe it's about where to find good food, or heading back to the nest, or maybe it's just about keeping tabs on the family - "I'm here", "I'm here", "I'm here", "Where are you?" (Check out the close up video further down to see what you think.)

Humanity and communication

For the previous 4 years of living here in our beautiful, simple, quiet bush home in Lal Lal, we didn't feel the need to connect the home internet, and just used mobile data for our internet requirements, which for those previous years, was plenty. 2020, the year of COVID-19 and lockdowns, changed all that of course. Lockdowns and separation from loved ones haven't been fun, and the year has brought other challenges, but we have been overall relatively really very lucky here, while many in other places closer and further away have had a very much harder year in so so many ways. And it's not over yet.

It has been a year for allowing and practising self-compassion, when needed amongst the challenges the year has brought, and for always remembering the greater perspective and the many things we have to be grateful for, and for looking for ways to try to support others from afar, even when that has also sometimes been hard due to the limitations of lockdowns.

Here it's been a year of working through technology struggles amongst the other challenges the year has presented, and a year of much gratitude for same technology. We are so lucky.

Computers, phone, internet, Zoom have this year given me the opportunity to continue online (after some initial troubleshooting, let's call it) with my Ballarat Good Grief group, after we were no longer able to meet in person after our first weeks of meeting. I have been able to join in the weekly meetings of the awesome Act on Climate collective since they went online, and I have organised monthly meetings of the Ballarat Climate Action Network. After completing the 10 Steps of the Good Grief program with our Ballarat group, I was then able to run two more rounds of the program as a fundraiser for Act on Climate, and I'm now also currently undertaking the first extended facilitator training to further extend my skills of Good Grief facilitation. (Good Grief has been run online on Zoom since before Zoom was the big thing it has this year become!)

All in all, despite distance, restrictions, lockdowns, for me 2020 has been a year for making and strengthening connections. Perhaps the challenges to this have made it ever more important to put the effort in. And while online connection is amazing when that's all we have, it definitely also reminds us just how very special our connections in real life, in 3D, in close proximity, really are. 

So here's to keeping perspective and to keeping connected - however we can, moment by moment. Here's to hanging on and holding on, and to compassion - for both ourselves and for others.

And here's to keeping tabs on each other - "I'm here", "I'm here", "I'm here", "Where are you?"

Bless you all my through the screen friends. And my behind the screen friends too.

* PS Here is a mini tour of the nest spot from a few vantage points. Please enjoy our rather lovely "palace". Hehe... :-) Ah for the original bush shack on the block providing us with much needed additional lockdown space, for me and for our little pardalote family.

Plus, spot our dear friend "whit whit" bird in much lovelier surrounds, viewed instead while outside in the fresh air. Ah. Outside. Not to be taken for granted, being outside, in fresh air. Breathe it in.

This way, that way

And way up there.

Look up, look down, look all around

Look within and look without

See.

Love to all.