home hum

Moving Day!

For over a year now I've been contemplating moving this blog to a new space (one that doesn't cost me one hundred dollars a year!).  I've finally decided to make the move.  I do hope that you will come and visit me at my new home:  Tea & Cake.  

I enjoyed reading everyone's comments on my last post--so many good thoughts.   I've replied to them all in my comment box here, and I am continuing the conversation at my new blog.  

This Red-tailed hawk has been keeping an eye on my chickens.

I don't have much to share these days...the new year has gotten off to a bit of a rough start for my family, but I know that only means there are brighter days ahead.  Hope and love, and all that stuff, you know?

Here is a passage from a novel that I'm reading, that I thought was interesting. What do you think?

"The tree's an acacia.  The bird?  I have no idea."

"I thought you knew everything about the wild world," I teased, and watched him bridle.  

"Our people don't share the European mania for naming and categorizing," he chided me.  "You think that just because you can give something a name you know something about it; but if I told you its name, what more would you know about it?  Nothing essential about its nature, nothing important at all: just an artificial word some man has randomly attached to the creature that won't make it fly any better or produce more young.  It is another form of colonialsim, this naming of our world."  

~from The Salt Road, by Jane Johnson

This passage brought to mind so many things for me about how I experience nature (especially bird watching), but also about people, and what it means to know something.  These days, we confuse information with knowledge.  We think that our ever advancing technology has opened a treasure trove for us. Has it? 

A Small Poem

When I was a little girl I thought in poems.  Then I grew up and now I mostly think about grown-up things like bills and what to make for supper and what time it is.  If I try very hard to remember what it was like to think poems, I can sometimes catch a small glimmer of it.  (Warning:  none of my poems are very good).  

In a corner of my kitchen

Near the window

Live a rabbit and a bird.

The bird cheeps and twitters

While I stand at the sink

The rabbit silently chews

As I dream out the window

Of soft brown creatures

That live in grass and trees,

And, 'sea, hill, and wood'.

Collecting, sorting, gathering,

Washing, mending, feathering

The steady thrum of my heart

The rain against the glass,

Water swirling down the drain.  

 

Edited

Every so often I write a letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe.  They never publish it, but I write anyway in order to let off a little steam ;-) .  Imagine my surprise when I opened this morning's paper and saw the letter that I wrote last week in response to this article:  The Sleepover: Teenagers and Sex. At first I was giddy with excitement.  Then I read the letter.  It wasn't mine.  I mean, it was, but I barely recognized it.  I certainly can understand the need to pare down letters for length, and my original was a little long (although not any longer than many letters that they print regularly),  but what they printed was so severely edited that I'm not really comfortable having my name attached to it.  

Would you like to see my original letter and the one the Globe printed?

Original: 

As a parent of three teenagers, I read The Sleepover  (Kate Tuttle, G section, Dec. 22) with interest,.  I was hoping to learn something new about  how parents can help their teens develop positive attitudes about sex.  Instead,  I read that parents in the Netherlands give their teens permission to have sex at home, which ensures the sex is “safe”(parents take responsibility for birth control).  It’s rather like the parents who allow their teens to drink with their friends at home--what can go wrong if there are parents involved?  

The article left me wondering why we put the focus of sex education solely on  pregnancy and disease prevention.  Apparently, sex education is successful so long as there are no pregnant girls and diseased boys. (Those were the only results that were measured in the article.)  Why is there no focus on the long-term psychological effects of sex outside of a committed relationship?  Are teens really being given accurate information about sex?   Are they being taught the truth about what happens inside their bodies at the chemical level during sex?  Do they know that their bodies are flooded with bonding hormones, such as oxytocin, which is the same hormone that is released when a mother gives birth and breastfeeds to ensure  mother-infant bonding?   During sex two humans are bonded together physically, emotionally, and psychologically.  This “imprinting” is permanent.  You may grow to hate your partner, but you will never be able to be completely rid of him; your body will remember.  People who have had multiple sex partners combat this by hardening themselves to the bonding process.  They disengage from their sexual partners emotionally or psychologically.  Is this what we are aiming for with our children?  What is the effect on society as a whole when you consider the impact on future relationships, emotional health, etc.?  Are we producing a more compassionate, responsible society?  Can this be considered positive, healthy sexuality?  

The Globe Editor's version:

AS A parent of three teenagers, I was hoping to learn in Kate Tuttle’s article about teen sex how parents can help their teens develop positive attitudes about sex (“Young love,’’ g section, Dec. 22). Instead, I read that Dutch parents give their teens permission to have sex at home, which ensures the sex is “safe.’’

Why do we put the focus of sex education solely on pregnancy and disease prevention? Why is there no focus on the long-term psychological effects of sex outside a committed relationship? What is the effect on society as a whole, when you consider the impact on future relationships and emotional health? Can this be considered positive, healthy sexuality?

Kind of boggles the mind doesn't it?  It makes me wonder what happens to books in the editing process.  

This is Christmas

White pine forest at Horn Pond

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were abundant with joy.  Candles were lit, carols were sung, feasts were prepared and enjoyed, and gifts were exchanged. On the 26th we walked in the woods together, counting the geese on the pond and marveling at the fast forming ice. On Tuesday my husband went back to work, and the children and I ran around the house playing with marshmallow shooters (this year's favorite toy :-), while our dog happily cleaned up after us. Today we found places in our home for all of our bright new things. We also gathered up the dirty laundry and went to the library. This is Christmas, too.  

After the shepherds worshipped their newborn King, whose cradle was not crafted of gold, but was a homely animal trough, they returned to the fields, to their sheep, to their families and their work. Christ had come, but what had changed?  Nothing.  Everything.  Christmas is the difference between standing in a room in the middle of the night, and standing in it in the morning.  The room doesn't change at all, but your view of it has changed completely. And, so everything has changed, because now you see. 

For Catholics, Christmas is more than a day.  It is a season that begins on Christmas Eve, that holy night, and continues through January 5th.  I am still in the midst of it, beholding the view, and pondering what it means for my life. These are the days that I take joy, and also take stock.  I am writing down my thoughts as I pray each day, and considering what my response to Christ's coming should be in the year ahead.  The spiritual life is rooted firmly in the practical.  The real life I lead each day in my home and community is the pulse of my spirit.  I have much to think about in the Christmas days still left, and much to do to plan for a new year of home learning, healthy living, and open-hearted loving.