Holly and the Hippie Shirt

The article's real name is "Art, Aging and Spirituality— Connections between Things and Ideas." I wrote it in early 2001, when Holly was nine years old.

I will quote the end, and usher you toward the full article:

We all are preparing for our unseen futures, and I was prepared to homeschool. I am prepared to discuss the social history of the 70's musicals Holly is frolicking with now, in a shirt I made when a brand new India print bedspread could be bought by a barefooted hippie for $4. She is surprisingly prepared, at the age of nine, to understand it.

That was written for a local homeschooling newsletter, so I apologize for the neighborhood particulars. Those from Albuquerque, or who attended the University of New Mexico, might've perked up. ***

SandraDodd.com/HippieShirt
photo by Sandra Dodd

Spiritual growth

Where the spirituality comes in that, I think partly is the trust that your child is an organism that wants to learn—that that’s how people grow. There is physical growth that takes water food and rest, there’s mental growth which takes input—ideas, things to think about, things to try, things to touch. And then there’s spiritual growth, which takes more and more understanding—an awareness that it’s better to be sweet to other people than not, it’s better to be generous with your neighbours than hateful, better to pet your cat nicely than to throw it around.

At first it’s a practical consideration but later on, as the children are looking at the world through older eyes, they start to see that no matter whether the neighbour noticed or not, it made you a better person. No matter whether your cat would have done your stuff damage or not, it made you a better person. So I think there’s a spirituality there of respect given to the children being passed on.

Improving Unschooling
SandraDodd.com/radiotranscript
photo by Brie Jontry

Closeness and connection

Janine wrote:

Most of the things that have happened I didn't foresee! And they continue to happen and surprise me every day! To name just a few: spirituality, healing, realisations and awakenings, and most of all, a closeness and deep connection with my boys (and partner) that warms my heart and fills it till it's fit to burst! We spend every day laughing and smiling, most days side splitting laughter over a shared joke or something.

—Janine Davies

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Janine Davies

You can hear Janine's voice at 10:22 in the recording here: Healing

Embracing what is

Layers and sky

Photos with layers keep catching my eye.
Balloonists learn that there are layers in the air, where the wind is going different speeds or directions, too.

I like that there are visually attractive layers and invisible layers represented in this photo.

SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Gail Higgins

Accessible enlightenment

Janine wrote:

When my family started unschooling, my partner and I felt the spirituality of it immediately...
. . . .
It's grounded, realistic, accessible enlightenment.

—Janine

---

Read the whole thing, halfway down this page:
SandraDodd.com/spirituality

photo by Sandra Dodd, of the calliope on an English carousel
that now lives in a mall in California

When is it art?

Whitney DiFalco arranged those buttons within a circle, and photographed the result. Each button was created as utiltarian art, by other people, other places, other times. The photo is here for you to see. The buttons are probably back in whatever tin or box they were in before.

After some recent snow and rain, water ran off the roof into a plastic half barrel. The top froze, about two inches thick. Leaves had fallen on one side, and the ice locked them in.


My husband, Keith, took it out and set it upright so the light could shine through. His artistic decision was what would be "the base," so the mostly-embedded leaves hung down nicely. He didn't tell me about it; I happened to notice, and took a photo from my car.

The ice is gone, the leaves are on the ground with many others, and someday the photo will be lost.

"Art" isn't just in the arrangements or the photos. I think art arises with someone's appreciation of the shapes, colors, textures, and light.


The Spirituality page has a title made of a photo of temporary patterns.
Someday that page will be gone.
photos by Whitney DiFalco and Sandra Dodd
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Unseen future

We all are preparing for our unseen futures.


Kids love the excitement of not knowing what's around the bend. Parents prefer the illusion of planning years in advance, but we don't know what's around the bend, either.

Being as present as possible today, now, in this moment, will improve your unseen future.

---

The first line is from Art, Aging and Spirituality

The best matches for the other ideas are Moments and Big Gambles

photo by Dawn Todd
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Souls and minds

I think if people divide their lives into academic and non-academic, they're not radical unschoolers. I think unschooling in the context of a traditional set of rules and parental requirements and expectations will work better than structured school-at-home, but I don't think it will work as well for the developing souls and minds of the children involved. And those who are not radical unschoolers would look at that and say "What do their souls have to do with unschooling?"

SandraDodd.com/unschool/radical
SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Lydia Koltai
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The heart of unschooling

a mom named Tracey wrote:

"I am finding that it is when I can most fully let go of what 'should be' and most fully embrace 'what is' that I glimpse the joy and connection which is the heart of unschooling."

SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Janine Davies
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Accessible enlightenment

Janine wrote:

When my family started unschooling, my partner and I felt the spirituality of it immediately...
. . . .
It's grounded, realistic, accessible enlightenment.

—Janine

---

Read the whole thing, halfway down this page:
SandraDodd.com/spirituality

photo by Sandra Dodd, of the calliope on an English carousel
that now lives in a mall in California
__

Unseen futures

It's not easy to tell the profound from the trivial as it's happening. Sometimes the profound slips into the "not so important" category when I'm not looking. Occasionally I remember one thing or another that seemed just a little goof at the time, but ultimately, somehow, changed my life.

"We all are preparing for our unseen futures."


The quote is from Art, Aging and Spirituality
photo by Dylan Lewis
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Nurturing our spirit

"[W]e are drawn to exploring ourselves, to finding that depth of engagement in life, with all its twists and turns and ups and downs. For maybe the first time we really see the value in nurturing our spirit. It stuns us. We marvel that the journey we started to fully and deeply support our children and their learning has turned so completely around and we are learning so much from them about being alive and fully engaged with life."

—Pam Laricchia at Unschooling Grows Far Beyond “Not School"

SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Colleen Prieto

Balance

People can believe that there is centeredness, balance, and right-living without any belief in God.

SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Sandra Dodd, Windsor UK
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Ideaflow

I was studying education in the early 1970’s, having wanted to be a teacher since first grade. The university was a hotbed of radical new thought about learning, spirituality, the value and valuing of the human life and spirit. I was in my late teens, and eager to take my turn at trying to change the world. We read all the then-current discussions of classroom failure—James Herndon, A.S.Neill, Jonathan Kozol and John Holt—and I lived and breathed in their hopeful vision of the future of free schools and open classrooms. I taught hard, and after six years I quit. I never did quit learning, though.

Newer John Holt books were waiting for me fifteen years later, when my firstborn son was expressing his distaste for organized activities and formal learning.

While I was making him little medieval costumes and taking him to feasts and tournaments where I set him down to play with his collection of could-have-been-medieval wooden and clay and metal toys, he being part and parcel of that ongoing work of performance art which is the Society for Creative Anachronism, I started to think that maybe school wasn’t going to benefit a child who was resistant to group control and already surrounded by learning opportunities which my distant impersonal gurus of education would have approved. Homeschooling seemed part and parcel of the respect for individuals and the attachment parenting which had flowed so freely from my previous experiences.

SandraDodd.com/HippieShirt
photo by Sandra Dodd
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God speaks through light

I got a daily calendar in India, each page having a different picture of Ganesha and a quote. One is:

God talks to His devotees through intuitive feeling, through friends, through light and through a voice heard within.

I really like that intuition and "a voice heard within" are separate. Having grown up Baptist, "friends" were often considered to be the devil for sure. But best of all is "light." Inspiration and clarity, no doubt, but things look different in different lights.

SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Sandra Dodd, of figurines brought home from India last year

Little things

It's not easy to tell the profound from the trivial as it's happening. Sometimes the profound slips into the "not so important" category when I'm not looking. Occasionally I remember one thing or another that seemed just a little goof at the time, but ultimately, somehow, changed my life.

"We all are preparing for our unseen futures."


quote from Art, Aging and Spirituality
photo by Holly Dodd