Random surprises

Sometimes it's hard to know whether to look at the flower or at the leaves or at what might be in the darkness behind, or up at the sky, or to turn around and ignore the flower completely. There might be a bird in a nearby tree, or an interesting sound coming from a window.

Plans change. It can be good, upon occasion, to just listen and look and explore. Sometimes it's fine to just see a flower and not say a word about it.

We could call those moments restless confusion and indecision, or we could consider ourselves being open to the moment, in a state of wonder and curiosity.

Keep a positive light on what's outside you and within you, and your world will be a better place.

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Sandra, at the direction of a little girl named Shree
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Associations

LEARNING

Where do thinking and knowing turn to learning? Right at the edges, where you think something new, or know something different. Learning comes from connecting something new to what you've already thought or known.

ASSOCIATING ONE THING WITH ANOTHER

What scents, stories, emotions, visions do you associate with your mother? Your first pet? Your newest car? Ohio? Candy canes?

Each idea, object, concept, person, song, motion—anything you can think of—has personal associations for you. You have an incalculable mass of connections formed in your brain and will make more today, tomorrow, on the way home, and in your sleep.



SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra; Pune, Maharashtra, India

Practice

"Practice" is the actual doing of a thing. Some people practice patience, therapy, medicine, or Buddhism.

Sometimes a person will use the word "practice" when it would be better to use "experiment" or "drill" or "train." In that "experiment" or "work until it's right" way, trees never "practice" making leaves. Every leaf is for real.

And so it is with learning. "The practice of learning" is actually doing it.

Each bit of learning is real learning.



Holly Dodd photo

Give, give, give

If you want to measure, measure generously. If you want to give, give generously. If you want to unschool, or be a mindful parent, give, give, give. You'll find after a few years that you still have everything you thought you had given away, and more.



Finding Yourself

The quote above is from "Precisely How to Unschool": SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely

photo by Holly Dodd

Light and flow

This is picture of the sun shining on the Rio Grande. My daughter Holly took it and uploaded it to my collection of images for this blog.

This week I'm 9,000 miles from Holly and the Rio Grande, but I see the same sun. Some things are constant.

One can come to see that learning is as constant as the sun, if the proverbial windows are not figuratively blocked out. Darkness can be induced. Learning can be discouraged.

Be receptive to learning, and thought, and to possibilities. Let the light shine on the same old familiar things in a new way. Bask in the free, public streams of water and of light and of ideas.
photo by Holly Dodd

In and out the window

When I was a kid we learned a game with a song that went

Blue bird, blue bird, in and out my window,
Blue bird, blue bird, in and out my window,
Blue bird, blue bird, in and out my window,
Oh Johnny I'm tired.

I liked the idea of windows that birds could fly in and out of, and I've seen many of those lately.

Windows, doors, and eyes, I'm noticing, are for looking into and for gazing out from.

photo by Sandra Dodd
Pune, Maharashtra, India
November 2010

Real food

One of the many stories at "True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets":

Marty had been running around outside in the sun for a few hours, and I offered to take him to Ben & Jerry's. He said he wanted to go home and have real food, not ice cream, but thanks.