Gleaning

There is a group of homeschooling families in town that help participate in the Gleaning Project of the VSN (Valley Stewardship Network).

We come together once a month, in the harvest season, and gather the left produce in the fields as the old gleaners did. The following day, we go to an elder residency house, and distribute the goods among the residents

As we go along, we sing the songs that are growing dear to our heart:

It is in the spirit of serving that we really enjoy this group, and we hope in the future more things can be thought of to help the senior citizens, in what they really need.  There is some research into this question, and I am waiting for to hear some more of it, from the Coros Institute, an institute dedicated to creating dialogues between individuals or organizations committed to social change. http://corosinstitute.org/

It is something that is also resounding from many conversations, that one's actions are as needed as one's thoughts, and that the direction of the improvement comes from directing our thinking, passing through the feeling center and flowing out to the will. It is there that we can thus say: To Know, To Love, To Serve.

In regards of this, I will be working this fall in the book The Imitation of Christ, by Kempis, and will look for opportunities to engage as as a family in this Opus, Obra, for lack of a better english word, Action in the world around us, through opening our heart to what the head is listening.


The following poem is from Adam Bittleston, Meditative Prayers for Today.

Warmth

The autumn days are peeking through. It has been already 5 weeks that we have noticed a change in the weather, plants and gardens were bursting with fullness and they started to yield fruit as the days grew shorter. We still are in the middle of August but nonetheless,  we also have been getting ready for school days and the fall.

Warmth is a very special chapter to consider for children, as they incarnate it is very important to provide layers of fabric as well as love, that will hold the etheric in its working of providing warmth, and other aspects of growing up. It is also important for us parents and care-givers, to protect our own sources of warmth and enkindle them inwardly as the days grow cold outiside.

It is for this resaon that every summer we work on knitting hats for the children, we do a simple pattern which allows the ears to be protected and bring a beautiful rounded face, we call them "romantic bonnets", and they are done with wool, and cotton, the wool ones are layered with a silk underneath.

We also pay special atention at those feet, which have been free and running wild in the hot weather, but need to be clothed indoors already, and outdoors soon. We are very fond of "Hannah Anderson" version of slippers, and for lack of industriousness in that regard, we have been using theirs.

All in all, three layers are recommended for the upper part of the body, and two layers for below the navel. I found that the more these things are taken care of, with patience and ample time to do the dressing and undressing of children, the better the love flows through us.

Another important aspect is nutritionally, how to change gradually from the salads and raw food diet of summer, to soups and slow cooked meals of the winter. This also belongs to the warmth availability, as the digestion processes change according to the seasons too and have a helping hand in our conscious undertaking of the kitchen duties.

Finally, to wrap ourselves with beauty and reverence for the unfolding of this change, may open windows of inspirations for each child under our care, what they really need this year? How we can really help? Bringing these questions before we fall asleep may result in blossoming answers.

Excerpt of "Practical Home Care Medecine" in warmth:

Three in one

We had a wonderful opportunity to hear Dennis Klocek speak this last weekend in Viroqua. One of the points he stressed on is the importance of the spiritual relationship with the elementals and a way to work with them through observation of nature, processes and rhythms, description of them, imagination that comes forward and silence ( bringing the picture backward in our mind for example).

One of the exercises was with a series of pictures with clay and asphalt cracks:

Which turned for me to an interesting starting point for a discussion. The cracks could be looked at their central focal point, as happening when two forces opposing each other enter into contact/conflict. The image of the cracks show us a response in the physical world of this impact by three lines 120 degrees apart in the plane perpendicular to those opposing forces. This is to say, the result of two polarities is a trinity in the perpendicular plane formed betwen them.

It has been for ten years a thought about how the two pillars are joined in the cabbalistic tree of life, truth and mercy, justice and grace in a way that is not a combination of the opposites but something superseding combinations that makes a third thing anew between them, love, Christ.

There is lately a re-occurrent conflict by the two streams of thought (Platonists and Aritotelians) that is brought to us, in groups and talks, and again the Moebuis form seems to have something to say about it, and how the distinctual people can come together and have encounters at some point, or plane as it is described in the next figure:

As I was reading, (by chance), "From the History&Contents of the First Section of the Esoteric School", the concluding remarks by Hella Wiesenberger, it came more obvious that the conflict could be also in regarding the Anthroposophical Society from one hand and the anthroposophical movement in another.

"In the struggle toward that end (the re-constitution of the Society), ....the resolve was born to overcome the polarity of movement and Society by placing himself in the center"

"From the tremendous importance he attached to the polarity of Movement and Society, it almost goes without saying that Rudolf Steiner could not appoint a successor for the continuation of the impulse inaugurated at that time:"that hencefort the anthroposophical movement will be formed so that it gives no further attention to anything but what the spiritual world requires of it."(Dornach, April 12, 1924)"

Here there could be now questions and answers about the actual esoteric school, and the actual Society, the event in the spiritual realms for this century and the Ahriman incarnation.

For the children these polarities can be seen many ways, but we are choosing the Adventures of Don Quijote de la Mancha, and adapted musical of this Spanish Knight, which accompanies Sancho Panza in the conquering of dragons.