It seems like a lifetime....

....since I started, and seemingly abandoned, this blog. Almost two full years have elapsed since last I wrote here, though it was begun with the best of intentions. This blog was going to be a record of all of the amazing doings and happenings that make up our unschooling way of life. All of the little moments of adoration, discovery and 'learning' would find their way to this webspace to be shared with unschoolers and non unschoolers alike, or so I thought at the time.

So...what is really going on here? Hmm...a lot can change in two years time. And indeed, a lot has changed. But the vibration is there...the chord that runs through our lives is ever tuned to the song in our hearts.

To 'sum up' the last two years would take a long time. There have been births and rebirths. There have been deaths and transformations. There has been travel, excursions and explorations, both inner and outer. There have been piercings, and even tattoos. There have been apprenticeships, part time jobs and a soon to be driving test. There have been parties and holidays and new pets. There have been museums and broken friendships and trips to the city. THere have been new friendships, new communities in which to grow, and as always, there has been the freedom to choose.

In 4 months, Zena will be 16 years old. She has been unschooled since she was ten. Her life looks different now, and so does her unschooling, as we have found , in essence, an 'Unschooling School' located in the nearby city of Columbia. It's called "Roots: Self-Directed Learning Community" and in this place, we have found the one thing that we were truly lacking...a circle of unschooling teens which Zena could be a part of, locally.

I've become a facilitator, of sorts, and it has been a curious thing, to see the dynamics of these young people at work in their unscooling lives. We've begun to incorporate the younger children, to a degree, so Ruby is able to participate as well. Zena has become a 'vegan chef extraordinaire' since abandoning the confines of the Raw Food diet over a year ago (much to my relief, as I found the whole thing extremely limiting and quite dogmatic. )

Ruby, having never been to school, is doing just fine, not missing waking up at the crack of dawn, not missing having her days pre-planned without her consent or approval. She's beginning to read more and more every day; little things, like street signs, food containers, and such...things that she is genuinely interested in reading.

My husband David was quite worried, even over this past Thanksgiving, when my little 4 year old niece 'seemed' to surpass Ruby in her 'reading skills'. I shrugged it off, though, knowing full well that my sister in law spends quite a bit of time making certain that her children are properly educated, and if that suits them, it's fine with me.

A few days later, for my husbands benefit mostly, I began asking Ruby if she would like to play some word games, and she was ready, willing and able. So I began with small words like 'cat' that she already knew, and then underneath that word, I would write 'hat' and under that, 'rat' and so forth, until we came up with every word that rhymed with cat. We did some really silly ones, as well, ending up with words like 'poop' and 'stinky'. In the last two weeks, she's asked to play word games numerous times, and she has begun reading on her own, now. much to my husbands relief.

So, despite the fact that I haven't written in almost two years, things have been working themselves out naturally.

I'm hoping that it doesn't take me another two years to post again.