rousing my intuition

I spent the past several days at a workshop put on by Enki Education entitled "Rousing Intuition". The general idea behind the concept (as best as I can explain, which is not neccessarily a complete or thorough description) is to help parents (or educators) foster their intuition and be able to understand themselves more deeply and less judgementally, and to bring them to a place where they can use those intuitive skills to understand and more effectively teach their children. The workshop included exercises in mindfulness meditation (which serves to help us be more present -- more mindful -- in our lives), discussion and activities to help recognize different temperaments, dispositions, and learning styles, and an activity that worked on helping us to recognize when we're being judgemental and how to look into that judgement and find the "truth". The overlying theme was discovering which pathways were most open, and using those open pathways to find access to others. The sculpture in this photo is something that I helped create with other members of the workshop who displayed similar dispositions, just to give an idea of how hands-on this workshop was.

The workshop kicked off a longer week-long Enki Education Homeschooling Conference that is being held at a private camp in south-central New Hampshire. The grounds are beautiful and includes two lakes, many trails, a variety of buildings both old and new, and a lovely lakefront area. As an early riser, I was able to explore quite a bit of the grounds before our daily activities began. Unfortunately, I was having some trouble with my camera phone (I later discovered that I'd inadvertantly left the settings in "macro" mode after photographing some wildflowers -- I always knew that habit would get me in trouble!), so most of the photos I took during the course of the 3 days were blurry, so I apologize for the lousy photography. This is a picture of the lake that the beachfront is located on. I'm hoping they'll hold the conference here again next year so that I get a chance to explore further. This year I just attended the workshop.

And here's the other lake, a short hike from the dining hall.

One of the really unique aspects of the conference is the childcare situation -- during each of the two daily work sessions, there is an experienced Enki childcare staff to provide stimulating and interesting (and of course, Enki-friendly!) activities for the children that are enrolled, to provide a very camp-like atmosphere for the kids, without the stress of being truly away from their families. I was extremely impressed with the childcare staff, and am looking forward to enrolling at least J (maybe both kids) in the program next year. There were a lot of quite young children enrolled and they seemed to thoroughly enjoy the program.

This is a group of blue flag (wild iris) I found growing along the above pond on one of my early morning hikes.

The workshop was an incredible experience for me. I experienced many revelations about myself (some of those "aha!" moments), including the fact that I care very deeply about relationships (so deeply, in fact, that most of the decisions I make/have made in my life revolve around making and maintaining connections with others), that I'm a primarily kinesthetic learner (which was a HUGE surprise to me, but certainly explains a lot), and that I have a strongly playful temperament, which, while that wasn't a surprise in and of itself, it did allow me to finally come to terms with who I am and gave me the permission to feel comfortable about it. Most of my life I've felt like I needed to supress my playful, enthusiastic side (in fact, I've been told many times by others that I'm too loud, too active, too busy). I've tried repeatedly, with no success (now I know why!), to change myself into a quieter, more peaceful person. Coming to understand my basic temperament made me realize that this is just who I am, and, more importantly, that it's OK. I don't think I'll worry about showing who I really am or spend any more energy trying to change into something I'm not any more. Now the goal is to allow my children to experience that same sense of freedom to be who they are without judgement or trying to change them. Which happens to be what I've always wanted anyway, but now I think I'm better prepare to allow it to happen.

One more photo -- the waterfront area, complete with beach, dock, raft, and a supply of canoes. I wish I could have gotten a picture inside the "daycare" room (not that they were indoors very much, mind you!), it was like a fairy tale. Play silks adorned the walls and floor, baskets of sea shells and rocks, piles of interesting logs and bark, nooks and crannies to hide in and explore, an absolute imagination factory!

One of my favorite parts of every day was the morning family circle -- an experienced Enki educator led us all in songs/verse and dance/movement. It was such an amazing feeling to do that as a community -- it's hard to do a true "circle" when it's just you and a kid or two! It's more a meandering. So getting to experience a larger circle was so much fun and very inspiring.

All in all, this was one of the most valuable workshops I've ever been to. It was a deeply moving experience to be able to meet and talk with other families walking a similar educational path, and I came away feeling very connected to the community. That in itself will carry me into the coming "school" year with renewed commitment and zeal.

And hey, I'm all about the zeal! :-)