Dear Followers,
Just to let you know that I have moved to a new website. You can now find me at http://www.acredibledreamer.com
I will appear here a few more times to explain to you what has been happening in my world of visual beauty. :)
Lots of love,
Alicja
I’m popping here just for a minute to share with you this magnificant lecture that I thought EVERY parent should watch and enjoy. It’s a shame I did not have access to it when my son was between 0 and 3. It would have been much easier for me to reject all the criticism that I was getting for talking or reading too much to him. This is such an important message which basically emphasises that you should grab every minute of those early years and enjoy them with a full heart.
Play people, play, play with your kids. It’s worth it!
You can find the lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSNRtJtNHT4&feature=share
Please share the link further!
When you are aware, the journey is over.
Note in Polish: Zachęcam gorąco do obejrzenia tego wykładu. Szczególnie rodziców dzieci w wieku 0 do 3 lat.
No one knows it better than children that darkness can be beautiful and exciting. That shadows can have their charm. That solitude can bring up our creative spirits and make them hear voices that naturally disappear during our daily ramble of routines. No one knows it better than children that the unknown is always a promise of discovery, that the scary can easily be turned into the unusual or the magical.
Sometimes we need a bit of help to tread into the unknown and to become childen whose curiosity is stronger than fear, we need to be helped with going through the darkness of self-discovery. During our darkest moments we rarely resemble children who are interested in observing or making the magic happen. During our darkest moments we are utterly confused, stuck in the difficulty. And this is when we reach for somebody or something and this is usually the time when many of us start to pray again – or to pray for the very first time ever. The prayer works, mostly when we understand that
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” Soren Kierkegaard
It’s when we start to smile at darkness that the magic begins. It’s when we take the responsibility for making the magic happen, that it does.
Too many eggs and too many baskets*
A while ago I wrote a post in which I was openly confessing my love of reading. I was saying how important it is for me to study and how important it is for me to engage with other people’s ideas. That day I was fortunate to receive a comment from Faye in which she wrote:
“Don’t let ONE aspect of who you are SWAMP other things.”
I read the comment and it was as if I was struck by thunder. I started having a serious dialogue with myself.Maybe Faye was right? Maybe studying was overcrowding other things? Maybe my research was encroaching on our family life and invading our family space a bit too much.
My books, my papers, my notes were everywhere and they were pulling my and my son’s attention pretty much constantly. You can imagine what that meant – lots of frustration and unnecessary conflict, lots of stress and mental burden. I realised then that I needed a solution.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I was seriously considering quitting my work and my research, but that felt terribly wrong to me. I know what happens to people when they quit realizing their dream prematurely, they are scarred for life – I didn’t want that scar. Plus, on the very positive side, I thought to myself, well… I do love myself. I do love what I am doing. Why deny myself the joy that comes with it?
So I was troubled. I love my home, my family but I also love what I am doing and those very dear and very enriching aspects of my life were calling for separation. Calling for boundaries.
I was tossing and turning. I was unable to sleep through the night and then all of a sudden I had a light bulb moment – I just need an office. I immediately went online, yes, at five o’clock in the morning and right there and then I found a perfect place for myself. In a recently renovated old red brick factory I am now doing my research into multilingualism and I am teaching different languages, both in Polish and English. Maybe one day I will also teach some basic Spanish grammar and re-engage with that beautiful language that I studied at University. Once you start studying a foreign language, it really becomes part of you and not being able to speak it for a while is like not being able to access a part of yourself. It’s almost as if language imprints itself into your DNA and becomes part of your life story. It’s quite an amazing process.
Yesterday three years passed since I signed up with WordPress for the first time. The world of blogging gave me friends for life. Thank you WordPress. Thank you readers for taking the time to visit and comment.
Enjoy the Autumn!
xxx
Alicja
*Taken at Biskupin – An Open Air Museum, Poland
When my son was born many people were asking me about my wishes for him, about who I would like him to become, about who I would like him to be. As much as I like people to ask me questions, I disliked being asked about this one. It disagreed with my conviction that these little beings are separate beings and it is to freedom that we are bringing them up and that it is freedom that first and foremost we should allow them to experience. You see, our children are institutionalized from such an early age, their growth is formalized and lifestyle made formulaic. They need space and time that is free from our influences, and free from others. They need space and time where all that they hear is the chatter of their own minds. Uncluttered time, uncluttered from our wishes for them, however well-meaning they are.
At some stage I was really provoked by someone to answer this question: Who you would like your son to be? So I answered: I know that my ambition for my son is really my ambition for myself. If you hear me saying that I would like him to be a writer and a peace-maker, you know that this is really what I want for myself so I will be pushing myself to create the best sentences I can and pushing myself to learn the art of conflict-resolution, I will not be training my child in it. All that I need to do is to give him space for his own dreams and ambitions to emerge and flourish. Freedom comes first and our ambitions for our children can really lead us to understand what ambitions we have for ourselves.
So if they want to run, let them run.
Postcards Without Stamps 