A Silent Retreat With My Kid Around

A Silent Retreat With My Kid Around

by | Feb 2, 2017 | Alternative, Parenting, Visible

 

 

There was a raging storm inside of me. So many thoughts, so many possibilities, so many questions, so much churning. It seemed that my home, my temple, my sanctuary was blasted with gusts of outbursts and drama. I was battling enough my confusion, the fog that the physical location of my life brought to the project through which i felt most need to manifest my life purpose of facilitating joy and love. I felt spent having talked about, debated, sought advice and meditated and then my vain attempts at surrender.

Having just returned from India, having a house guest, missing my space, the joy of seeing the ocean and missing the happy buzz of Halla Gulla, setting up home again, getting back to routine it was all a bit too overwhelming and disorienting.Then everyday watching messages and e-mails of opportunities we couldn’t take up because I wasn’t in Mumbai. After a while my heart grew heavy. I missed the joy of giving  that comes to me from live interaction.

The day after Christmas, I woke up feeling the desire to be quiet. It was just natural, not planned. If I could have planned I would have gone to the Sivananda Ashram in the nearby Bahamas, but I could not, and I really didn’t feel up to traveling after a hectic India trip, so I just sent my husband at text explaining I wished to be in silence for a few days and could he support me please. He said yes and things flowed.

Our daughter is 5 and very expressive and with a strong need for communication and she couldn’t quite get it. I saw that it was challenging for her, yet I felt strongly to honor the call of my soul. So i communicated in sign language. I was still accessing e-mails and whats app in a disciplined manner.  Our LO did ok, meditating with me and us sharing lots of intimate hugs and eye gazing that ended in smiles or giggles. Inside I continued to be a witness to my thoughts, watching them without the colors of anyones opinion or advice.

Still it was intense for the LO.I hadn’t decided how long I was gng to remain silent, I was just going with the flow of my souls need. I arranged playdates for her via text with friends who would understand my silence.

Addressing a meltdown in silence
One day however, her swimming teacher didn’t come. S loves her swimming class and her swimming teacher, who is the most positive encouraging person. The two of them share a lovely bond and greet each other and thank each other in Swahili and Hindi respectively. I love watching them and give thanks for the gift of such a lovely teacher. S burst into tears. With all this silence she was looking forward to the swimming to have fun and let go and so she just let the floodgate of tears open. I hugged her and kissed her and acknowledged her feelings with my eyes and sign language? It was not enough.

I wondered if i should speak. But what point. My mind raced…and I knew nature would solve this for us. So I managed to get her into the car. Taking a packet of bread along we drove to a pond nearby. She was crying  inconsolably. I carried her from the car to the pond and took a piece of bread and threw it in the water. Soon there was life . The hickatees (like turtles) came in , few first then a whole bunch of them.  She suddenly got excited about who was going to get the bread and forgot to cry. Then there were the baby tadpole like fish that create designs as they reach for crumbs and make the water jump sometimes. there are the carps and there are the red beaked ducks who glide past indifferent to the buzz the bread has created and leave a V shaped wake of water behind. She fed the tickets, shooed the roosters and hens away and was enraptured  by nature. We stayed there for 20 minutes or so in silence, each of us watching what most appealed in any given moment. There were large flying stalk like birds that came and went and reflections in the water and the sun changing position. Suddenly there was a drizzle of rain, refreshing and beautiful. We smiled, hugged and went home.

 

Hickatees popping their heads up for food[/caption]

Hickatees Close up

Nature and play to heal myself and my child
While I was honoring my own need for silence and clarity, I also wanted to honor S need for play and togetherness. I had recently chanced upon the most beautiful swing in the world. A tree that dies, gives life after death. The picture will say all there is to say!

So I took S to this beautiful swing by the sea and I my husband came along too. Me in silence, them chatting.  She was thrilled with the swing. Her heart needed more and after a while, she was not happy with swinging alone.  She craved intimate play. So we gathered some beachy treasures and created a world. Its amazing communicating in silence, understanding what the other is saying, where they want to place an object and how we communicate our creative vision.

Kind of clues you in on  a deeper level. But she wanted play, like physically play..so I looked on the wet sand and began to make different types of footprints. Walking like a penguin, a duck, walking zig jag, jumping, drew a line with a stick and jumping on either side. This was so much fun for her. She made some of those up and I followed along. It was really the  most creative time on the beach. We began to notice doggie paw prints on the sand and bird claw prints ….just a world out there! Jumping facing one way and then another footprints[/caption]

Criss cross, zig zag walk footprints

Heel walk footprints

How I procured a wooden crate in a liquor store without talking
Some asked how I went about the business of the day without talking. I went to buy S a wetsuit at the diving store. I smiled, pointed, indicated her age with my fingers and communicated entirely in sign language. Its amazing how nice people are and even more when they think you have a disability. The saleswoman was just so helpful.
Another day I went to a liquor store to ask for a wooden wine crate I wanted to repurpose into a Kabaad Se Jugaad bookshelf. I typed on my phone. I walked in with a big smile and showed the cashier my request. the whole store came to help. They didn’t have one, but one guy said his mother worked at another store and she would arrange it. He wrote a note for me to give his mother. I went to her store and got the crate.
All along it was beautiful…..really deeply beautiful in a way you don’t experience in the normal world. This beauty you can’t experience in a retreat, a vipassana, an ashram, because there you know most who come re coming to seek, are positive. here in the real world, experiencing the welcome giving of a liquor store salesperson is just such a gift.  the Divine Intelligence shines through all levels of consciousness. Truly! I rust that one day I can keep this in sight through my interactions with the one or two people that challenge me!

“Mamma, I miss hearing your voice”
One day S said to me , “Mamma, I miss hearing your voice”…so from that day on, every night when we give thanks to the universe, I would give thanks aloud. I also told her I’d  read her a story everyday with no conversation before or after.
And did I mention a moonlight walk on the beach with my husband where I wasn’t talking. Must have been bliss for him! lol!

Mindfulness walk to bring in the new year
I’ve been hosting a stone soup gathering once a month in my home. For the 1st of January i sent out a mail inviting people to a darkness into sunrise mindfulness walk at 7 mile Beach, which is such a beautiful beach.  We went at 6 a.m when it was dark and walked in silence until 7 when the sun rose. We had 2 kids among us, who found their own silent communication and play. The dark water turned to its beautiful blue as the sun rose and it felt like time to speak again. I came to, feeling rejuvenated and with such amazement at the gifts that a silent retreat  while living in the heart of life can bring.

I didn’t find the answers to the questions i had, but in silence, I found the most unexpected beautiful gifts and such deep connection with my LO.

Is this something you would do with your child? I’d love to know.

Mommy Madness & Mandalas

Mommy Madness & Mandalas

by | Mar 21, 2016 | Alternative, health, Parenting, Visible

Chanting while coloring a mandala

Mandalas are geometrical patterns that are contained within a circle and bring great balance and harmony.They exist everywhere in nature, in the trunk of a tree, in starfish in the sea, in snowflakes and in cells.
Colouring mandalas with your child or having your child color mandalas are great motor exercise that bring deep harmony and an inner sense of accomplishment and contentment.
I don’t believe in forcing a child to colour. However, there is a time when kids are obsessed with coloring. It is what they call in Montessori education, a “sensitive period”, a time when learning of that topic will be most welcome as interest is at peak and persistent. At such a time, having mandalas available with easy access to the child can be helpful. I’m not too sure about boys, but my little girl cannot but help be attracted by the designs.
We have a community silent hour every month, where people of all ages sit together, doing whatever they want in silence. Some read, some nap, some colour, some journal. Being only 4 and having attended these gatherings since she was 2, the little one likes to busy herself coloring. Little hands must do and this is something she loves.

Though I have worked with children in the space of dance education and storytelling for over 12 years, I’m no expert on education, but I am a keen observer. These are a few things I noticed about mandala coloring:
Coloring from inside to out or outside to in, whichever way the child chooses, brings a sense of focus and inwardness.
There is a natural silence that this harbors, the symmetry and balance bring peace and the face looks focussed yet serene.
Since coloring is a precursor for developing the fine motor skills needed to write, coloring mandalas, with their intricate patterning helps develop this in a very organic way. Whoever enjoyed drawing straight, slanting and curved lines on blue and red lined paper anyway!
My daughter and I more often than not chant while coloring. We often colour together, on the same mandala maneuvering space and her indicating the colors she wishes me to use silently. Its such a great experience. Often after long periods of togetherness, we get on each others nerves. At times like this, we are both glad to quietly colour mandalas and avoid saying impulsive and possibly hurtful things to each other.
As an extension, we observe mandalas in nature, someday we will make mandalas with leaves and flowers and kolam/rangoli and when she is old enough and interested, we will learn to draw yantras.
For now, we enjoy our mandala meditations. Do try it and share your experience in the comments.

Parenting 2.5.0

by | Aug 14, 2014 | Parenting

They tell you that once you have a decent job and get married, you will be ‘settled’. Then they tell you you will only be really settled once you have kids. I was always critical of the settled business, though I can see value in the concern of those that talk about it. Even if you have a child, like my husband and I, when you truly feel ready, have been a party-holic, travel –holic and how can I forget work-a-holic and know you’ll have no regrets because you lived your life fully and don’t feel an ambitious desire for position, lifestyle or keeping up with the Joneses, the roller-coaster will only start after the LO arrives. This is not a complaint or judgment on parenting, its an observation on learning, and growing and most of all on integrating.
I’m sharing a little of my journey, as one of the possibilities to parenting, hoping it may provoke, inspire, help or just provide an interesting read.
I had decided before I even met my husband that I would like to raise any kids I had with the same dedication I gave to studying so I could max my grades. It amazes me most of us spend at least 20 years of our life amassing “skills” to get a “good” job and absolutely almost no time to learning skills for marriage or more importantly parenting, which is a lifetime commitment! It hasn’t been easy but learning the skills (thank you Effath Yasmin and practicing them has made it happily possible. I try not to allow for space for sentences such as “ I just don’t have the patience” or “ I just can’t handle it”. How limiting a belief is that! Can I not trust myself more than that? We can stay back in office to finish a task we have no interest in because its expected of us and there’s that bonus or promotion being dangled like a carrot. But our infants have no expectations of us. They just are and love us no matter what we do. (What accommodating blessed souls!) So we just don’t work at it, most of us!
For the first 18 months, I just kept to a routine. That gives babys much security and comfort. I nursed on demand, introduced her to whole foods of all textures and flavours, read to her, chanted everything pretty much on a time schedule. That’s what I believe prepared me to transition into what I envisioned as the next step, finding a daily balance between my needs and hers. The trust having been built, after 18 months we began travelling again, trips abroad, hikes with baby in a backpack, getting back to plurk (work that’s play) and many of the things I loved to do before she came along.
Her early solid foods of steamed carrots and ripe sticks of muskmelon and watermelons and beets and bell peppers prepared her to identify and enjoy each foods natural abundant flavor. It also made for a great easy to travel with baby. I can just buy carrots and bell peppers and avocados and beets and wash them with water from my bottle and know my little one will make a meal of them. Same with fruits because she never was offered anything mashed. What about choking? Well just youtube first aid for infant choking….its that simple and really their body intelligence and reflxes are top of the line till you put fear in and mess with them. And did i mention No sugar…just jaggery and dates and honey. I learnt during my stint with gestational diabetes that even rice is sweet (yes i know this from experience). Its all in honing the taste buds.
More to come soon……