The Lorax and The Wine Country

So that is where he went when all the truffula trees got chopped down!


Oh wait, just two totally different parts of my day haha. My day started at church. I had signed up a long time ago to teach one of the summer Sundays, and we had a Dr. Seuss theme this year. You better bet I jumped on the Lorax right away! What I wasn't expecting was such a huge crowd! I do believe I counted 19 kids! It took them awhile to settle down, and they were just not into the opening questions at all, but when Jenn started reading the story, they were totally into it. Then there was a craft time, which was making truffula trees. They had a choice of pipe cleaners or straws for the trunks, and there were cotton fluffs for the tops along with markers to decorate them with. We used little bits of clay to make them stand up. I got the idea to lay down a big piece of paper and said that would be our forest, so the kids had a place to stick all the trees and it became more of a joint art project. I love that kind of thing. Before I knew it, there were kids making fish and swans and bears - all the other characters from the story - out of pipecleaners, clay or whatever. I love UU kids!

Then we headed out to the wine country later. That was what I really wanted to do for my birthday, but this was the best day for it. Had a great time although we got a later start than I wanted to, which meant we didn't get to hit has many wineries. I hade made ahead a chicken salad from a recipe in a picnic cookbook I have, and it was AWESOME. We tried some really great wines, and Ron bought he a Pinot Noir that was way too expensive. If I ever get on the ball, I will find my notes and edit this with where we actually went.

Family Covenant Group

I can't remember if I have ever mentioned much about our Family Covenant Group we go to once a month. Covenant Groups are something UU churches do and are also known as Small Group Ministry. They are basically groups of people who get together on a regular basis to discuss a topic with the purpose of deepening bonds and promoting spiritual development. Most groups take the summer off, but our group decided to keep meeting and just keep the topics light. So I suggested talking about movies in July and books in August.

Well... in my opinion, it was one of our best meetings! The discussion moved to documentaries at some point, which opened up all kinds of interesting social, environmental, etc. topics. The night just seemed to have a really good flow to it, and we talked about everything from Spiderman to kids movies to Bowling for Columbine. And Ron put forth his idea about how movies are desensitizing us on a wide range of subjects, to the point we don't care about crazy stuff when it happens in real life. Good stuff.

Can Orion play?

So this has been a very weird thing for me lately. I just realized I wish I had blogged it the first time it happened because it is certainly a milestone in its own right....

We have lots of young kids in our neighborhood. There are two brothers that live around the corner but come to our culdesac alot to play with the girl next door. I am not sure of their ages, but I would guess around 4-5 and 7-8. Sometimes Orion plays with them all if we are outside at the same time. They are all really good to him - I am pretty sure I even made a post about it not too long ago (when they were all playing with squirt guns).

Lately, they have been knocking on our door to ask if Orion can come out and play! That seems so odd to me since he is only two! But really sweet at the same time. And bittersweet for mom, because it makes me feel like he is a real kid now, not my baby anymore. Can't I keep him small forever?!

I love it when stuff like this happens

Today I had one of those experiences that made my day. Orion and I met an older gentleman, probably in the 60-70 range, in Ace Hardware that blew my socks off. At first glance, I would have guessed he was one of those grumpy old conservatives the Westside is known for, but I was quite wrong, as I have been many times in my life!

Our interaction began as he noticed Orion spinning in circles as we waited in line, and he offered to let me go ahead of him. I accepted and was thinking, "Oh great, he is thinking I have a terribly behaved child." But what followed was a conversation that warmed my heart all day.

Me: Oh, thank you! I guess you can see I have a crazy, little monkey with me.
Him: She sure is a cute little monkey though.
Me: (pausing, as I always do, to think whether I should bother to correct people) He's a boy, but that's OK, everybody always thinks he is a girl - it's my fault for not cutting his hair. I love his curls.
Him: (looking very sorry) Oh no! Don't ever apologize! His hair is beautiful.... I want to tell you a story. I have a grandson who had long hair, and he really liked it. His mom and grandma got to the point they wanted him to cut it, and he didn't want to. They decided to hold him down, and he screamed the whole time as they did it.

The look on this man's face as he told me this just broke my heart. He was clearly completely disgusted by their behavior and looked like he was reliving his sadness for his grandson as he told me. Whenever I meet older people who seem to have an innate understanding about respectful parenting, it makes me so thankful to know these people were around even in a time when that thinking was not very popular. But it got even more touching...

Me: Oh my gosh, how horrible. With him, though, he has been talking about wanting to cut it, and I am the one who doesn't want to!
Him: (looking at Orion) Don't do it son! I used to have dark, curly hair and look at me now. (He was mostly bald.) You will look like this soon enough.
Me: (laughing) Yeah, listen to him, Orion! I do think he just has a babyface too, and that makes people think he is a girl. He takes after his dad. If my husband shaves his beard off, he looks about 12.
Him: Well, that is a good thing! He has a great look.
Me: Yeah, I think so too. :)

At this point, I was up at the front paying for my small purchase and getting ready to leave. The last thing he said to us as he bid us farewell... "Seriously, whatever you do, don't ever try to change him!"

:sniff: Not a chance.

And for the Real Fourth...

I don't have hardly any pics LOL. At least not holidayish ones. I had a really great and relaxing day though! We had decided ahead of time to go out for a late breakfast as we had dinner reservations at 6:30 and figured we could just skip lunch so we would be nice and hungry!


When we got to IHOP, we ran into one of my LLL coleaders going in at the same time! So I got to share breakfast with a friend just by chance!


Then I went over to my friend Jenn's to swim for a bit. We always had big pool parties growing up on Independence Day, so somehow it doesn't seem like the Fourth without a dip. Orion kept going back over to the jacuzzi though...

I have no idea why since it was so hot outside already! I wish I had gotten more pool pictures of him, but of course I was with him, so my hands were wet. After we got out, he wanted to go hang at the playground. That didn't last long because I was worried about the heat, but snapped a couple cute pictures at least.
I have been into close ups lately.
Back at home. I have been wanting to get Orion a water table for a long time but haven't managed to snag one off Craigslist. Then I bought some new toy bins this month and figured I wouldn't have the money anyway. So I got smart and filled one of the big bins with water. Who needs a fancy table?! Several containers and some shells and rocks we got in Canada and he was a happy boy! He was very proud of the little tower he built and kept asking me to take a picture of it. :)
I thought this was the cutest picture of Orion in a long time. And that is saying something coming from me!

Then... dinnertime! I had decided to go to Benihana because it seemed like someplace that would be nice for my birthday but also keep Orion entertained. I mentioned it to some of my friends, and a couple other families actually decided to come! I didn't really expect anybody would because I thought everybody would be busy, so I was really happy. It was Jessica and Dane with baby Olivia, and Emily and Michael with Jakey, Sara, Seth and even their older son Morgan came. We were quite a cozy bunch around one table! They even brought me gifts, which I didn't expect at all. I was so touched! We had a great time, even though Orion was being a little monkey (as I expected).

After dinner, we met Catt and Kristin at a nearby rec center known for people doing alot of fireworks nearby. We decided to skip the major crowds of the big shows, but it was a great decision as the kids got to play on the playground, and we still saw lots of impressive illegal fireworks LOL. All in all, I nice mellow day!

Starting Early

We decided to start our Fourth of July celebrations a day early this year. We actually still had a big box of fireworks from last year! And since we have plans to go out to dinner tomorrow for my birthday, and we will probably try to see some "real" fireworks, I figured it would be better to just get them out of the way. It worked out great because our neighbors are going to a Beavers game tomorrow night and decided they would do theirs too. Word spread to the neighborhood kids, and...



... we had quite a crowd! Here is daddy lighting and running away.
Orion intent on watching
Our stash in the process of getting used.
Mandatory pics of fireworks that never come out very well.

But here is my favorite picture of all! Orion and his first sparkler. Soooo cute.

The whole evening was quite lovely. All the kids were so kind to each other. Overall, the kids around here all love Orion and are so good to him. It warms my heart.

Have I mentioned I love living in a culdesac?

The Great Turning

WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

I have been thinking about this concept ever since hearing about it at GA. I did some research and found some great guidelines and such online. There is a main website with a page on Earth Community Dialogues which outlines alot of stuff:

IMPERATIVE
Business as usual is over. The era of cheap oil is ending, climate change is real and deadly, and the U.S. economy rests on an unsustainable foundation of financial and environmental debt. For most people, the debate on each of these issues is now over. Yet there is little prospect of constructive political leadership coming from Washington, DC. The initiative in embracing the moral imperative to fashion a constructive response to a growing planetary emergency must flow from the community level upward through an inclusive process that engages the interests and participation of everyone. Earth Community Dialogues are a response to this imperative.

UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES
Earth Community is a term from the Earth Charter, a declaration of universal responsibility to and for one another and the Living Earth crafted through consultations involving thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations from all regions of the world. The Charter sets forth four overarching principles:
respect and care for the community of life;
ecological integrity;
social and economic justice; and
democracy, nonviolence, and peace.
These principles define universal values affirmed by all the world's major faith traditions and embraced by a substantial majority of the world's people. They are the foundation values of Earth Community and provide the guiding framework for Earth Community Dialogues.

BEING THE CHANGE WE SEEK
Negotiating a transition from the dominator relations of Empire to the partnership relations of Earth Community necessarily centers on nurturing the practice of partnership at all levels of society from local to national to global. Partnership relations are a product of trust building and the discovery of mutual interests.
By their nature, partnership relations involve a leadership of the whole and represent the highest expression of the democratic ideal. Using instruments of domination as means to achieve the end of partnership assures failure. Partnership relations must emerge from the bottom up through processes of mutual empowerment as people discover and cultivate relationships of trust and otherwise dormant leadership potentials within themselves. Think of it as a process of community building. Earth Community Dialogues, which bring together diverse elements of a community around a commitment to creating a partnership world that works for the whole of life, are an essential part of this community building process.

DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS
An Earth Community Dialogue is best understood not as a single event, but rather as an intentional, broadly inclusive, ongoing conversation centered in a community of place the embraces a commitment to:
The defining principles of the Earth Charter
The moral imperative to create a world that works for all;
Racial, religious, cultural, political, and class diversity;
Mutual respect, deep listening, heartfelt communication;
Values based learning and problem solving; and
The work of gaining currency for stories of Earth Community.
The individual dialogues take many forms and go by many names, but share an underlying commitment to turning the current planetary emergency into an opportunity to create a world aligned with the deeper values most humans share.
A small group or even a single individual might initiate an Earth Community Dialogue in a given locality, perhaps from within a local church, mosque, synagogue, interfaith alliance, local government, college, socially responsible business, or local nonprofit organization. It might build on and support existing initiatives intended to advance local agriculture, energy self-reliance, green building, or support for local businesses. It might begin with a series of discussions on The Great Turning, a YES! Circle, Conversation Café, or other regular discussion group. As these dialogues take root in a growing number of localities, they create a growing potential to merge into ever-larger dialogues of the whole.

STRATEGIC PREMISE
We humans are captive to self-limiting stories that deny the possibility of any alternative to humanity’s current suicidal path. To change course, we must step forward to break the silence that prevails when truth remains unspoken, end the isolation that undermines community, change the stories that define the prevailing culture, and thereby turn the human species to a future that works for all. Our collective behavior will change as our collective stories change. No matter how small the individual voice, it can contribute to changing the national conversation, and thus our politics and the course of the human future.

POSSIBILITY
Possibilities for a rapid expansion of the processes of positive bottom up leadership in the United States are far greater than our nation’s bitter political divisions might suggest. Eighty-three percent of Americans believe that we are as a country focused on the wrong priorities. Substantial majorities of both conservatives and liberals want to see greater priority given to children, family, community, and a healthy environment. In short, a substantial majority of Americans feel out of step with the way things are going and embrace the foundational values of Earth Community. The result is a historic moment of opportunity to make a conscious choice to turn from away the sorrows of 5,000 years of Empire and embrace the joys of Earth Community.


I also found some stuff on the lovely Joanna Macy's site about Personal Guidelines for The Great Turning:

Come from Gratitude
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe--to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it--is a wonder beyond words. Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. Furthermore, it is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world.

Don't be Afraid of the Dark
This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don't be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, for these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. To suffer with is the literal meaning of compassion.

Dare to VisionOut of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it's going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.

Roll up your Sleeves
Many people don't get involved in the Great Turning because there are so many different issues, which seem to compete with each other. Shall I save the whales or help battered children? The truth is that all aspects of the current crisis reflect the same mistake, setting ourselves apart and using others for our gain. So to heal one aspect helps the others to heal as well. Just find what you love to work on and take joy in that. Never try to do it alone. Link up with others; you'll spark each others' ideas and sustain each others' energy.

Act your Age
Since every particle in your body goes back to the first flaring forth of space and time, you're really as old as the universe. So when you are lobbying at your congressperson's office, or visiting your local utility, or testifying at a hearing on nuclear waste, or standing up to protect an old grove of redwoods, you are doing that not out of some personal whim, but in the full authority of your 15 billions years.