Stubbornly Optimistic
trust
If you haven't noticed, I have used the moon cycles as a rough guide for newsletter themes and send out dates. This just feels more organic and connected to me. Going forward I am planning to send them out on the New Moon. This is a more consistent date than I was aiming for, and bypasses the conflict with my own cycle that has been mucking things up. It gives you more time to prepare for a full moon feast if that's your thing. So that is why this one is a little earlier than usual.
That said, I'm playing a little fast and loose with this month's full moon theme. This year falls into a bit of a rarity where the September Full Moon comes to early to be properly called a Harvest Moon, which is actually which ever full moon falls closest to the Autumnal Equinox. Usual alternatives are the corn moon or barley moon, but that's pretty much the same thing as a harvest moon theme, so after a little digging, I found another tradition called the Flying Up Moon. I came across this story where a Cree boy asked his mom if it was called that because it came in the same month as the airplanes came to take them to residential school. His mom explained that it's actually because it's when the birds start to migrate. Sometimes our education causes us to lose knowledge about the world around us. This is a great time to rethink what we want to be learning, and to fly up into a new season.
This month, whether you are homeschooling, going to public school, teaching or in another line of work, our culture is shaped by this "Back to School" moment. My family schools year round, but August and September still mark a renewal for us, and like migratory birds, taking off on a new journey. This year's journey for me is largely about trust. I have made the decision to trust my oldest two sons' natural curiosity to guide them into the learning they need for their own unique lives. I have waffled back and forth with the philosophies of unschooling for years, afraid that I would miss something, afraid they would "fall behind", afraid that others would think I was neglectful or lazy. But this summer has made it clear to me that prioritizing the relationship I have with my boys over someone's list of what they should learn when is the right way forward for our family.
Whatever education looks like for you this year, whether you are teaching kids at home, sending your kids to a school building to learn, teaching other people's children, or even if you think your lifestyle is really separated from the educational sphere but are still striving to learn new things for personal growth, let's step out in trust. Trust our family members, trust our comrades, trust our selves to feel out the path as we go.
It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.
- Leonardo da Vinci