Buy Nothing Month challenge

Hello and sorry for being absent so long!

Back with some news of our annual Buy Nothing Month challenge which started on Sunday. Today is our fourth day of non-consumerism and all is sweet. We haven't had to resist any temptation yet, but the kids have found the rationing of food a little tough. I have spent hours over the last week with my nose buried in recipe books and it always comes as a surprise that we don't have the key ingredient and obviously can't actually buy it either. Oh well, perhaps most of these exotic culinary treats will have to wait til December.

Am being quite resourceful in the sense that I have made tzaiki with courgette and smoothies with nut mylk - both of which were rejected for being 'weird'!

Enjoying rereading some of my favourite books about Simplicity, like John Lane's beautiful poetic Timeless Simplicity, the brilliant guide to creating an authentic life by Dan Price, Radical Simplicity, the inspirational voice of the Nyerges in Extreme Simplicity and of course, Tom Hogkinson's How to be Free.

Spent Sunday searching for a book about the spiritual benefits of clearing your space but couldn't find it so decided to just get on with it and cleared out a cupboard that had been looming large for months. Yay!

As a friend said yesterday, it's amazing what space is created in our lives by letting something go. For me observing a month where we buy nothing brings so much space and clarity - it's almost addictive! Will share more soon.

Unschooling Conference

We are off to the unschooling conference this weekend in London. Really looking forward to all the talks, workshops and activities on offer. As well as the chance to meet other home educators and get inspired. It takes place on Saturday 25th July at The Music Room, just off Oxford Street.

There’ll be lectures from Dayna Martin, radical unschooler, author of Radical Unschooling: A Revolution has Begun, la leche league leader, natural birth educator … (I can’t wait to meet this incredible woman!), Matthew Speno, educational consultant and unschooling dad, Wendy Lewis, home educated illustrator of the brilliant practical guides to HE – Unqualified Education and One to One and many other speakers.

The crystal reiki workshop for adults and children will really appeal to my eldest daughter, whilst yoga for families is where my youngest will make a beeline for. All of us are looking forward to creating art with Emma Neuberg. If you would like to attend, I believe that there are still tickets available. Visit The London Unschooling Conference for more information.

May is probably my favourite month - I love the celebration of Beltane, which marks the start and the lush greenery and hedgerow flowers that appear during the late spring. There a real feeling of opening during this month and of receptiveness and joy. And we did indeed have a marvellous month of May filled with flowers, family and festivals. 

Our Natural Gardening Special edition of The Green Parent came out in mid-May, carrying articles on how to create a wildlife garden, parenting and permaculture, lotus birth and our favourite family festivals. When it was published we took the opportunity for a quick break in the Lake District to cheer on my courageous and exceedingly fit brother-in-law as he made short work of the Brathay Marathon round Lake Windermere. We spent a week exploring the area around Coniston and discovered some beautiful stone circles, a really inspirational garden at Brantwood, home of John Ruskin and some great wholefood cafés. 

Once home we set to work on the next edition which is published next month and also managed to squeeze in a weekend at Sunrise Celebration, which comes top of my list of favourite festivals. It was a truly blissed out and loved up affair taking place on an organic farm in Somerset and powered ostensibly by renewables. Added extras such as the Earth Heart Cafe, which served energised chai from a huge conch shell, fairy permaculture gardens and a large hot tub made it even more magical. We're looking forward to Sunrise Off-Grid in August, if we can manage to get our Education issue of the magazine produced in time.

Other exciting happenings this spring have included a series of breathing workshops run by my lovely and very talented yoga instructor, Julie Stannard, a foraging walk along the South Downs to discover the healing properties of our native flora and fauna and some joyous time spent with friends. We have had a really social time recently, meeting up with friends every day. The girls especially have really enjoyed this and our home education journey seems to be quite focused on emotional and social intelligence right now. That feels really good for us all. Will post more later - right now I have stories to read...

quick catch up

Well it's been ages since I last posted so I thought I'd do a quick round up of what's been going on here at The Green Parent. We certainly felt the powerful effects of the Equinox and had a good old clear out and were able to let go of some items and systems that we'd been holding onto for a long time! Then, I did an Energy Awareness training course back in April, inspired by Natalie Fee, who writes the Spiritual Parenting column in the magazine. This course coupled with a series of yogic breathing workshops have helped me release a whole lot more so am feeling really good right now.

Carry on camping

We treated ourselves to a beautiful bell tent for festivals this year and are so thrilled with it. We camped out amongst the bluebells for a week, cooking on a fire and sleeping on the earth. Absolute bliss. It was tough resuming 'real' life and the box-like confines of a house after tented living. Planning a solitary moon lodge in the tent this week and am so excited!

The magazine

We've just finished our Natural Gardening special edition which will be out next week. It's packed with stuff - inside there's articles on how to create a wildlife garden, unassisted birth and a huge festival ticket giveaway. In stores or available here from 14th May.

ostara blessings

Just wanted to post a quick note on Ostara or the spring equinox, which took place on Friday. We spent it with friends around a bonfire after an egg hunt amongst the wood anemones. Am just reading The Idle Parent (which is hilarious, subversive and quite brilliant) so it was timely to watch all these home educated children running free, climbing trees and enjoying self-directed play with other kids of all ages. And hasn't the weather been gorgeous and uplifting? I have had the chance to get really stuck into my garden and that has been blissful. Also brewed up my first batch of nettle tonic of the season and it's taste is spring encapsulated. Anyway, back to Ostara... Cultural connections Ostara is a time of balance, as the equinox is the point at which the day and the night are of equal length. After this night the days become longer than the nights which is a special cause for celebration in some cultures (such as Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey), and actually marks the beginning of their New Year. For the Anglo-Saxons, the equinox also heralded the beginning of the New Year. The celebration honoured their Goddess of Spring, Eostre, and this is believed to be the forerunner of the Christian celebration of Easter. The themes of these celebrations throughout the world are very similar, all of which focus upon new beginnings, fertility, and new life. Embrace fertility Ostara is a wonderful celebration, the second of the fertility festivals (Imbolc being the first). Falling at such a beautiful time of year, there is much to celebrate! The days gradually lengthen and the beauty of spring is all around. The air is fresh and sweet smelling, and there is a sense of ‘lightness’. Our heavy winter clothes are shrugged off, and most are feeling a renewed sense of hope and happiness as the sun prepares to smile down upon us for a little longer every day. Personal celebration It's a good time to reflect upon the balance of your life. Springtime heralds change and transformation, and the opportunity to hold a mirror to yourself and ask, ‘what do I see?’ This is not a physical question, rather one of honesty. It is a time of clarity and new beginnings, a fresh outlook. All that we resist will reappear continually until we confront and accept what we fear to change. We can manifest new intentions just as easily as flowers spring up from the earth. Ostara blows in on a fresh easterly wind, (usually accompanied by cleansing showers as we have seen today!), as its element is that of Air. Accept change Allow the winds of change to move you. This may be gently, blowing away the cobwebs of winter, freshening the space between your relationships, and cleansing your communication with others. If you have stagnated, hibernated or stayed stubbornly in one place allow the sweet easterly breeze to flow around you and through you. Savour and delight in the fresh fragrant smells it brings: spring blossoms, warming earth, awakening fresh greens. Permit yourself the youthful perception and clarity of spring; it’s flexibility and strength. Once you embrace this, you yourself will bend gracefully under the fiercest of winds like a strong, young sapling. Living life lightly and affecting positive change is all about acceptance – of others, yourself and your situation. Spring is a special time to invite new challenges, or face old problems, with a renewed sense of purpose. This evocative pentagram image is created by Jennastasia

Last night on raw

Well, tonight is officially the end of our raw week - we shared a cheeky dinner of mango and raw chocolate brownie. No-one complained! I am thinking about doing a Master Cleanse starting next week to help shift some of my own stuff in preparation for the spring as the raw week was very much about everyone else and I didn't really get a chance to go deep into the detoxing process. I fancy putting together a programme of journalling and massage, inner truth seeking and yoga to lead up to the spring equinox. We are organising a big Ostara egg hunt though so will have to curb all those chocolate cravings! I'll let you know how I get on.

Raw Update

Hey lovely folk, Just an update on being raw as a family for a week. Well Jez and I are on Day Five and feeling pretty fantastic. I started introducing cooked foods again for my children on day three because I didn't think that raw was really working for them. They ate loads of fruit, a bit of seaweed and quite a few raw veggie crudites but my youngest in particular was not keen to try anything more complex so when they started to get hungry I made some soup and the next day jacket potatoes and so on (they are now eating raw for two meals and cooked at lunchtime).

Making mylk One of the most successful things has been hazelnut mylk which I make fresh every morning by blending two handfuls of hazelnuts (that have been soaked overnight with two dates) with about a pint and a half of water. I drain this for a lovely creamy mylk to accompany raw granola. 1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked 1 cup pumpkin seeds, soaked 1/2 cup agave syrup 1 cup almonds, soaked 1/2 cup raisins (not usually raw as they are coated in oil, so omit if on a strict raw diet) 1/2 cup hemp seeds 1/2 cup flax seeds 1/2 cup coconut flakes Put all ingredients in a food processor and blitz until well mixed and nuts and seeds are broken down a bit. Put into dehydrator overnight. If you don't have a dehydrator - put in the oven on lowest heat with the door open for an hour or so (although environmentally this is a bit of a disasterous use of energy!)

Crisps and other snacks We have also dehydrated parsnip and courgette crisps which went down well and made tomato nachos by blending five tomatoes in a food processor and dehyrating the mixture. When ready I broke it into triangle pieces and we have them with sprouted chickpea humous (which is made in just the same way as normal humous, just with sprouted chickpeas instead). Mains and salads Vegetable pasta (peelings of carrot and courgette) has featured prominently either with raw tomato sauce or spinach pesto. Am going to try nettle pesto as well this week. I have become addicted to a brassica leaf mix (finely chopped with a hemp seed dressing), available from the local farmer's market and have had to phone the lovely farmer who grows it to ask if I can go and pick up some more because I've run out and have been eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days! Detoxing and cleansing One of the things that has struck me is that we have all gone through a detoxing phase and that I have been so anxious about how everyone else is feeling, what they need to eat etc that I have not been able to tune into my own detox at all. I love fasting and doing equinox and solstice cleanses so will probably carry this through into next week and do a Master Cleanse to finish the clearing out. Oh, and clearing out has been another good thing to come out of this going raw experiment. I have taken lots of things to charity and done some regifting of books and clothes. Will keep you updated with our progress!

Full Moon in Virgo

Early on Wednesday morning the moon reaches its fullest point. So what does this hold in store for us? Well, she will be full in the sign of Virgo so we can expect this to be a time for healing and serving others. Its also ideal week to concentrate on our body and to take responsibility for our health. On 11th March at 2:38 the moon is full and the energies that surround this event will affect our lives for the day before and will continue for several days afterwards. So let’s look at the impact of this Virgoan full moon. Virgo is the healer, nurse, doctor and therapist. According to Astrolger, Lisa Dale Miller, “This sign is the true healer of the zodiac because in its mind, if it causes pain, it warrants attention and a cure. For Virgo, caring comes in the form of finding workable solutions to everyday problems.” This is the time to take full responsibility for our health. The current alignment of planets invite in depth questioning of our beliefs about medicine, healing and disease. Listen to what your body is trying to tell you about your life. An interesting exercise is to do a body scan. Lie down in a warm, candlelit space and relax deeply. Take your attention to the top of your head and listen to the message of your skull, then take your attention to your eyes – what are they trying to tell you. The message might pop up in your head as a thought, you might hear a voice or perhaps see a picture in your mind of the body part and what it is feeling like. Some parts of the body may not give a message. Others may have lots to tell you. Once you have completed this exercise, scanning through the whole body, write down what you can remember of the observations. It makes for interesting reading and gives you a deeper insight into how your body is really feeling. Its a good opportunity to start a detox programme of body, mind and space. So embark on a few days of healthful eating, decluttering and addressing any issues that come up through journalling or talking them through with a close friend. Volunteering and helping others is also key at this time. Celebrate your hard work as a carer for your children and extended family. Take a walk in a beautiful location, book a massage or treat yourself to a candlelit bath. Enjoy the bountiful full moon energy and let us know what you got up to when the moon was bright!

Raw Food Week

Amid today's scary headlines about the food industry - declining bee population could cost millions in terms of crop loss, fruit and vegetables being grown in factories devoid of natural light and the unveiling of aggressive marketing techniques used in the food industry in a new book - we have decided to go raw for a week. We already eat quite a lot of raw food but we have decided to try going raw for a week and charting how this dietary change affects our moods and emotions. As spring approaches it feels like the right time to do a bit of a clear out and transition to some lighter, juicier foodstuffs. I ordered a bumper selection of fruit instead of our organic veg box this week and have started sprouting seeds on all available surfaces in the kitchen. Have made some raw granola for breakfast tomorrow morning and will get some nut milk started before retiring tonight. Tonight is the last supper and I'm out at a workshop on Nutrition for Children, appropriately, so I won't be around to eat it. The last few days we have stopped eating wheat, sugar (a few blips!), caffeine (coffee, choc etc) and alcohol. I'm excited and I'll keep you posted about how we get on.

New Moon in Pisces

The New Moon is a time of rebirth—a time when we are given a chance to start fresh. On Wednesday 25th February the New Moon is in the altruistic, receptive, and dreamy sign of Pisces. So what does this mean? Well, it is a good time to commit to personal goals that express positive and creative energies.

You might choose to:

• take a leap of faith – believe in something that you always wanted to believe in, but were too afraid to put your trust in,

• accept imperfections in yourself and in others,

• start a creative or imaginative project,

• consciously put aside time for peaceful, rejuvenating activities – these can include yoga and meditation, but can be as simple as recognizing your need for “down time” on a regular basis (a cup of tea and five minutes silence every afternoon for example),

• practice putting yourself into others’ shoes, and let some things go (such as judgments and frustrations),

• energize yourself through new experiences that require your imagination and compassion,

• connect or re-connect with a lover on a romantic level; share a dream with a friend.

One of the “lessons” brought by Pisces is to release some of the anxiety that takes control of our everyday lives. As an example if someone takes your place in a queue, tell that person, “Go ahead”, and mean it! If that feels sarcastic, don’t say it out loud, but think it instead. You might “lose” a minute of your time because that person jumped ahead of you, but you will have saved yourself the stress and negativity that comes from allowing yourself to get annoyed and impatient. Same goes for when you are driving. Let small grievances go. Smile at other drivers, or at least, smile to yourself. There is no need to get worked up. These are “little things” that, if practiced often, will help us to understand and apply Pisces lessons in far-reaching ways.

It can seem that the fishes are the easy going, romantic sign of the Zodiac but still waters run deep and we only see the part that’s visible. Pisces swim in deep waters and what happens deep within requires a level of solitude to understand. This is an ideal new moon to find your own way of diving within. One way to do this is through meditation, but you may have another method for accessing that deep private place. For me, it’s yoga. You might prefer surfing, chanting, or walking in the woods. Going deep within is the alternative to catching up on the latest news bulletins, and riding the waves of fear. This is the time to choose another path, and turn inward to find what you need to sustain you through hard times. Since Pisces is the natural artist, this diving inward is also a path to greater personal creativity, too. So unleash your creative side, bake a cake, paint a picture, make something. Do it just for you and enjoy yourself!

So this new moon is a portal to choosing love or fear. We are more powerful than we realize; what’s cultivated within is reflected by the kind of world we live in. This new Moon is a chance to re-create the world, one that is a mirror of who we are, at our most compassionate, unique, colorful, visionary and hopeful.

Today’s painting is by the incredibly talented Josephine Wall. With many thanks to her for her inspiring work.

I'm back

Just a quick post to say that I'll be back over the weekend with some ideas for the New Moon in Pisces coming up on Tuesday - it's a time of homecoming and awakening so should be fairly nurturing and blissful after overcoming the challenges that this moon phase usually presents us with - you know going deep into the darkest parts of our self, etc.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I wanted to carry on writing on this blog as well as the one on the main Green Parent site. So, hope you enjoy reading...

cloth from pineapples!

Following on from our exciting natural textile discoveries in the latest edition of The Green Parent magazine, in which we showed beautiful clothing made from nettles, hemp and bamboo, I have just learnt about a cloth made from the fibre of pineapple leaves. How cool is that!

Produced entirely from the leaves of the pineapple plant, Pina Cloth is gossamer thin yet strong enough to construct light, airy garments. It makes a fantastic animal-friendly alternative to silk, is fair trade and is still made using the age-old traditions that have been used to produce it for hundreds of years. Weaving the fibres from the plant's leaves is an age-old tradition which was recently revived in the past 20 years. History records suggest that Kalibo's Pina cloth was traded during the Pre-Hispanic times and reached as far as Greece and Egypt during it's heyday. At Boutique Ethique, Pina cloth produced by a fair trade family-run company in the Philippines features is used to make items for the Spring/Summer 09 Collection, like this beautiful blouse, £130 (pictured). The company employs 85 weavers and insists on maintaining the traditional techniques, such as manual extraction of fibre, and preserving the cultural heritage of the weaving industry.

For more info on natural fibres see issue 27 of The Green Parent magazine.

news and a redirection

Hello,

Been meaning to post for ages to say that our new website is up and running and there's some juicy competitions and interesting articles about co-sleeping, being a good birth partner and fun activities to do in February.

So, this also means that my blog has moved a few doors down and can now be found here. I'd love for you to come and visit! Still posting a mixture of moon musings, green reads, news, a few ideas and some nice things I've spotted. 

Hope to see you there,

Melissa

PS: Also forgot to mention there's a new mag out with lots of gorgeous ethical fashion and ideas for greening up our wardrobes. All subscribers this month will be sent some yummy natural beauty products to accompany.

happy new year

Well, a very happy and green new year to everyone. I am really excited about 2009 - it feels like a time of great change and potential. I am looking forward to continuing to share the positive message of The Green Parent magazine, bringing inspiration on parenting issues and green ideas to an even wider audience. We have lots of fabulous things planned for this year along with a new website, launching next week that will be packed with articles, comment, reviews, competitions and much much more. The next edition of the magazine is also out next week and has some great new features including a reader's panel where our lovely readers share their opinions and ideas.

I hope that the festive season was full of light and joy for all. We spent most of our time celebrating with family and friends which was absolutely wonderful and has reaffirmed a resolution that I made to myself at the Celtic New Year in November that I should spend more time enjoying my loved ones company and less time fretting over work, household chores, shopping and other activities that involve separation rather than connection. 

After all the festivities Jez and I found ourselves with a free weekend (children happily ensconced at their grandparents) and we indulged in a spa weekend, which was out-of-this-world. We ate, slept, went for long walks and lounged around in hydrotherapy pools for two days. I think it will be become our new New Year ritual and maybe we'll have to commemorate the Chinese and Islamic New Years in Feb and March, respectively, in a similar fashion! 

I am leisurely re-reading Tom Hodgkinson's How to be Idle at the moment and I think this has, in part, affected a sea-change in my previous workaholic state. I'd recommend every time-poor, overstretched person get a copy of this book and take it to bed at some inappropriate time, like in the middle of the afternoon. It's quite revolutionary!

Anyway, love and light for an abundant, healthy, happy and slow 2009,

Melissa

xxx