Poem

44

This morning my daughters will bake me a banana and ginger cake to celebrate my 44^th solar return. I’d like to invite you to my celebration by sharing 44 things I’ve learnt in my life.

Be you, everyone else is already taken

We have the friends we deserve

No gift is more beautiful than a smile

Music nurtures the soul

Home is the most wonderful place on Earth

The greatest prison is in our head

Being born Christmas week isn’t a tragedy

It’s never too late to learn an instrument

Deep breathing can calm any crisis

Love is the sweetest perfume

You’re never too old to need/want your mother

Children are very forgiving. Learn from them.

Others can only love you as much as you love yourself

Share recipes ~ and nourish other people

Hand-written letters are precious

Buy (grow) flowers for yourself

Luxuriate in your favourite scents

Reach for the stars

Keep your feet firmly on the ground

After betrayal, remember this: life goes on, you will survive

Walk everyday for health and happiness

Live according to your own morals

Be original

Somewhere along the way, I must have generated great karma for tomorrow I celebrate 15 glorious years of marriage to my soul mate.

Tell your children you love them ~ every single day of their lives. No one can ever take that away from them.

People come and go. The ones you need, stay.

Don’t let anyone steal your song.

Nurture your soul.

Pray, in good times and in bad

The Sun is sacred

 Gratitude is even more powerful than love

Be kind to yourself about previous mistakes

Live a life of no regrets

Call people up on their crap ~ you’re worth more than that.

Eat fabulous food every day

At a soul level, children choose their parents

Decorate your soul

Sleep well

Remember your dreams ~ they’re letters from God

Empathy is what connects humans

Every day is a miracle

Walk barefoot on the Earth

Life is very short ~ we don’t know how long we’re here for…so let’s celebrate every single day as if it were the last.

      The hand-crafted life is created one day at a time.

Rising from the ashes ~ A phoenix ceremony for New Year's Eve

Rising from the ashes ~ A phoenix ceremony for New Year's Eve

On the last day of The Mother magazine family camps, we hold a phoenix ceremony around the camp fire. We join together in a circle, and individually we write on a piece of paper what it is we’d like to release from our life. It might be a person, event, health condition, debt or situation. We feed it to the fire, and trust that it will be gone. Afterwards, we take a fresh piece of paper and write what we’d like to bring into our lives.

Release. Burn. Create.

Venus across the Sun

Venus across the Sun

written by Veronika Robinson

This morning, just before 5am UK time, Venus made a transit across the Sun. This is rare, happening only twice every 243 years (in pairs). There won’t be another one in our lifetimes.

Venus is often associated with love, not just in astrology, but elsewhere. Venus, however, is also about what we attract and what we’re attracted to. In some ways, our birth chart is like a mandala of manifestation ~ though it is always free will what one does with the blueprint of the cosmos.

Where Venus sits in our birth chart shows what we love, what we’re drawn to, the type of people, places, events we’re attracted to, and what we find beautiful. It also shows our self-love. The sign Venus is in shows the way we're drawn to these things.

So the symbolism of Venus crossing the Sun this morning highlights the need for us to direct our energy inward, and to individually and collectively ask:

 ‘what is it I truly value?’

‘What do I find desirable, beautiful,

harmonious about life, and in this life?

What am I prepared to do to create this for myself,

for the world?’

There are some incredible powerful transits coming up between Uranus (revolution, freedom) and Pluto (transformation) which will affect each and everyone of us. (I’ll write more on this shortly)

 This transit of Venus comes along to remind us of the beauty that exists in this world ~ if only we stop and take notice.

Use this day of the rare transit to observe and give thanks for ALL the beauty in your life ~ and let it carry you through the next few potentially turbulent years. 

http://www.themothermagazine.co.uk/astrology_reading.shtml

The Nurtured Family

The Nurtured Family

by Veronika Robinson

On July 15th, I'll have the pleasure of speaking at the Bluebells and Cockle Shells family garden party in Maryport, Cumbria.

The event has been set up by two TM subscribers, who also set up a Svery successful teiner-inspired playgroup called Beautiful Beginnings.

http://www.beautifulbeginnings.org.uk/bluebellscockles/

My talk will be The Nurtured Family. Admission is only 50p, and there are plenty of activities for children and adults.

Issue 53 of The Mother magazine

Issue 53 of The Mother magazine

Whenever I take an issue of The Mother to the printer, it feels like giving birth. The gestation is shorter, but there is that same sense of a ‘job well done’, of a major burst of creativity and labour complete, and new life created.

If you’ve never read The Mother magazine, here’s what we’re about: conscious conception, fertility awareness, peaceful pregnancy, yoga, freebirth, natural birth, gentle parenting, conscious menarche and menopause, home education and human-scale education, lotus birth, intactivism, natural living, home business, organic birth and death, healing modalities, vegetarian recipes, holistic skin care, herbal health, natural immunity, attachment parenting, family bed, fathers, grandparenting, baby-wearing, child-chosen weaning and full-term breastfeeding, vaccine and medicine awareness, gender balance, eco-activism, and much more.

The Mother magazine is unique ~ there is no other natural parenting magazine in the world that resembles this publication.

We support your journey into integrated optimal health from pre-conception to organic death, and everywhere in-between.

A couple of the letters from our mailbag:

I love your magazine ~ the best one on the market by far. Best Wishes, Stephanie

We thank you with our hearts every time we get The Mother. Thank you. Love and light, Katka

Thank you for your wonderful magazine. It gives me the courage to live the life I want, and the self-belief to raise my daughter by instinct, not textbook ~ invaluable! Anna

 Thank you for the new TM that arrived. Another inspiring issue:) Your article, Veronika, about your dad, moved me to tears. Big, big hug!! Lindy

What a joy to receive  those magazines on Friday ~ I didn’t know which to pluck first! Chronological order flew out the window and I just had to scan them all, one after the other. Erini, Cyprus

Feature articles in issue 53

Electromagnetic Radiation: how it affects you and your family, by Roger Moller

This is probably one of the most important health articles we’ve published in the past ten years.

Arnica Montana: The Wonder Remedy, by Sara Bran

Many natural parents are aware of Arnica for bruising. In this article, Sara looks at its use on a soul level.

The Shadow Mother, by Emily Stewart

A beautiful and honest portrayal of how mothers forget their own needs.

The Importance of Nature in Childhood, by Dr. Richard House

Richard has been writing for us for ten years. In this piece, he shares our Nature is intrinsic to Steiner education. 

ReConnecting Children to Nature: Four Simple Ways to Change Lives!, by Simon Paul Harrison

I love this article. It’s truly so simple to bring this ideas into your family life 

The Red Tent Movement, by Jane Hardwicke Collings

Red Tents are popping up all over the place (including this year’s Mother magazine camp). Learn how you can bring one to your community/group, and enhance women’s inner life.

Yogic Wisdom for Birth,

by Clare Cooper

Clare writes beautifully on this ancient art and its place in birth.

Against the Odds in Southeast Nigeria,

by Dada Daneshananda

 This article shares a deeply moving story.

Metamorphosis: Creating a Rite of Passage for a Teenage Boy, by Keeley Farrington

Paul and I have been deeply touched each time we’ve edited and proof read this article. I’m sure it would make such a huge difference to other teenagers if they had such a thoughtful and loving ceremony as they entered the teenage years.

Also in this issue:

From the editor: Nature’s toys, by Veronika Sophia Robinson

Mother’s mailbag

Picking Flowers, by Kristina Jensen

Celery, Carrot and Apple Salad with Miso Dressing, by Chrissy Bix

Lead the Way, by Keean Manktelow

Our Unschooling Choice, by Cath Bibian Dalle

Sungazing, by Anton Saxton

Diary of a Semi-conscious Mother, by Rachel Sills

Mother’s Bookshelf

Welcome Earthside: birth announcements

You can subscribe at www.themothermagazine.co.uk or for US and Canada www.themothermagazine.org or you can purchase a single issue.

School days

School days

Written by Veronika Robinson

This post is an invitation to current subscribers of The Mother magazine, and is not intended as a criticism of schools or those who choose to send their children to school. As a publication, we tend to focus on human-scale education, however we'd also like to accomodate the readers who choose other methods of schooling.
Although many of our subscribers home educate, unschool or have their children in a human-scale school, there are just as many whose children attend a mainstream school.

We're publishing a piece (NOT written by me) which includes parents' advice on how they balance their lives between their natural approach to parenting ~ and the culture of school life.

For example, how do you deal with wi-fi or phone masts in your child's school? Those who've researched this topic will make an informed decision not to have wi-fi in their home ~ but how do you deal with it in a child's school? Or what about those schools which are increasing the amounts of screen time in the classroom?

As a conscious and holistic parent, how do you find a way to spend positive time outdoors each day with your child for exercise, leisure and pleasure especially during the dark days of Winter when they've been in a classroom all day?

Do you let your children watch TV for hours after school or do you go in the garden, for a walk to the park or beach?

If there are issues such as bullying, swearing and rudeness in your child's school, how do you or they deal with this?

How do you balance homework when your child has been in a classroom all day?

What about when your child is being taught something that is fundamentally at odds with your family's beliefs or ethos? For example, your child's class is going on a trip to a war museum. If you feel your child is too young to be exposed to the horrors of war camps, do you let your child go?

Please share your ideas so that we can support other parents and children. If you're a current TM subscriber, you're welcome to email them to me at the usual office address

Parents

Parents

by Veronika Sophia Robinson


I begin my work day by shuffling a 64-card Power Thought deck (Louise Hay affirmations). Today's reads: "I see my parents as tiny children who need love.

I have compassion for my parents' childhoods. I now know that I chose them because they were perfect for what I had to learn. I forgive them and set them free, and I set myself free."

People new to the idea that we 'choose our parents' can become very defensive and angry. Another way to look at the above affirmation is this ~ would I want my own children to forgive me for all my failings and faults?

Don’t Cry!

Don’t Cry!

By Veronika Sophia Robinson

In an amazing moment of synchronicity, we were having a family discussion on the way to town about men and crying, when Paul stopped for a newspaper. The headline on The Guardian was Don’t Cry Andy ~ in relation to Andy Murray being the first English person to reach the Wimbledon finals for more than seventy years.

I caught a glimpse of Andy crying yesterday when he came runner-up, and was expressing his immense gratitude for all the support he’s had. I was overjoyed that he showed this side of himself. Overjoyed that he was ‘being real’. I cried with him and for him.

As a child, my dad would say to me when I was crying “Have a good cry, get it out of your system.”

My husband cries easily, and I wouldn’t have him any other way. To me, it doesn’t make him weak but quite the opposite. A man who cries is strong because he trusts himself, and those he’s with enough to reveal his true self.

A man who can cry ~ a man who is in touch with his emotional life ~ is one who will understand your emotions. And a man who understands your emotions will understand his children’s emotions. And if truth be told, don’t we all want to have an empathetic father? A father can’t understand his children if he doesn’t have emotional access to his inner realms.

One of my pet parenting peeves is hearing men (and women!) say to their sons “Don’t cry. Be a man!” Why on Earth should half the human species be exempt from this expression of emotion? Why should a three-year-old boy who scrapes his knee not be able to have a natural bodily reaction to the physical pain he’s experienced? Why should a teenage boy who has just lost his first love to his best friend not be able to share how much it hurts?

The reason many people perpetuate the ‘don’t cry’ lesson is because we live in a culture that hides behind ‘stiff upper lips’, ‘grief with dignity’ (what the hell does that mean?) or even a ‘false modesty’.

Many women in the natural parenting field are with life partners who, for whatever reasons, don’t necessarily sing off the same hymn sheet and discussions on parenting can become quite fraught, but generally the discussions end up with one or both parents closing down and not communicating clearly or effectively, or at all. Unfortunately, people in these situations rarely recognise the root cause of this dysfunction: a childhood of emotional suppression.

If men were raised with the safety and freedom to cry as and when was needed, they’d be able to express themselves without fear and the fear of being judged.

Intimacy comes when we can open up to another. Another way to look at intimacy is this: in-to-me-see. Yes, it’s about looking at who we truly are, and when we can make friends with our fears and our emotions, then we’re more able to step up in relationships and conduct them openly and honestly.

Tears are shed in sadness and in joy. These rivers of life are meant to flow. I urge you, let your sons (and daughters) cry when they fall over, have a fight with a friend, feel disappointed, sad, bereft or happy with joy, excitement and pleasure. Let them cry when they’re moved by a beautiful piece of music, artwork or display in Nature. Let them cry when they're empathising with someone else's pain.

If you find yourself uncomfortable with your child’s displays of emotion, it is worth doing a journey into your inner world and asking if the very things that make you uncomfortable are ones that you weren’t allowed to express as a child.

This is your chance to help heal a family pattern.

The Blessingway: creating a beautiful Blessingway ceremony

The Blessingway: creating a beautiful Blessingway ceremony

The Blessingway:

Creating a beautiful Blessingway ceremony

by Veronika Sophia Robinson

104pp

Full colour

ISBN: 978-0-9560344-7-2

A Blessingway ceremony is a beautiful and holistic alternative to the modern-day baby shower. Whether you’re a professional celebrant, midwife, doula or about to officiate your first Blessingway ceremony for a client, friend or sister, this guide will lead you through the essential elements of creating a beautiful, inspiring, meaningful and memorable rite of passage for a mother-to-be or for parents preparing to adopt. Based on the author’s years of experience as a celebrant, The Blessingway contains plentiful suggestions to bring art, soul and heart to this modern adaptation of an ancient Navajo tradition.

Veronika Sophia Robinson has been a celebrant since 1995, when she began officiating wedding ceremonies in New Zealand. She’s also been a celebrant for the following ceremonies: house blessing; divorce; menarche; menopause; baby naming; Handfasting, Blessingway; letting go; Phoenix. She has officiated ceremonies internationally, in a variety of locations, including: Maori marae, botanical gardens, by an ancient spring, bushland, a stone circle, river, fields, Ironage replica roundhouse, yurts and homes.

The Blessingway will be available to purchase in the next week or so from:

Visit http://www.themothermagazine.co.uk/bookshop/

Or order from good independent bookshops or Amazon. Available worldwide.

If you'd like to pre-order, you can use the 'donate' button on the website

http://www.themothermagazine.co.uk/donate/

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