“The focus of our days is the dinner table, whether, as often happens in the winter nowadays, it is just Hugh and me or I am cooking for a dozen or more. When the children were in school I didn’t care what time we ate dinner as long as we ate it together. If Hugh were going to be late, then we would all eat late. If he had to be at the theatre early, we would eat early. This was the time community (except for the very small babies) gathered together, when I saw most clearly illustrated the beautiful principle of unity in diversity: we were one, but we were certainly diverse, a living example of the fact that like and equal are not the same thing.”
Category Archives: Libri
Release from solitude
Allow me a lenghty quote, and a few (less lenghty) comments. ? Is it me, or does anyone else wonder why it is taking so many Americans so long to realize some of the things Montessori mentions below? ? (More on this later – I think I can combine some of my readings!)
“But let us think, for a moment, of the many peoples of the world who live at different cultural levels from our own. ? In the matter of child rearing, almost all of these seem to be more enlightened than ourselves–with all our Western ultramodern ideals. ?
Thanks, V!
This great post was on Veronica’s blog about their baby (which could be here any day now!) ? It’s the second one up at the moment, called “Vulnerability: open self to suffering and to joy.”? ? I thought it was beautiful, and applies amazingly well to two-year-olds. : ) ? The link is below. ? Enjoy!
Brothers K
That’s right, I finished The Brothers Karamazov? last night. ? All 701 pages. ? Of small print. ? Being stuck in a chair breastfeeding a good part of the day certainly has its advantages!
Anyone else who has read this, I would love to hear your thoughts. ? I find myself wishing for a good Russian literature class–there is so much in this text worth discussing! ? I’ll be posting on this book more, as I work through all the pages I dog-eared on my way through. ? But I am really curious to anyone else’s reactions!
Moon Watching
So we started reading Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television the other day…out loud, in the evenings. ? (I know it seems a bit extreme, but bear with me.) ? The thesis is that television, by its nature, is destructive to human lives and communities, no matter how nice or educational the programming tries to be. ? I’m sure I’ll be revisiting that idea later, but I think we’re already trying to benefit from one of the observations included in Mander’s first argument. ? He points out how disconnected we, especially we who live in the city or suburbs, are from the earth and its workings. ? Our food comes from stores, not plants in the ground; our water comes from faucets, not streams or rain showers; the greenery we do see is chosen and arranged by humans, not nature. ? Many, if not most, of us have lost our connection to the natural world, the world essentially unmodified by human hands (and machinery). ?
Little Books
Lucy recieved so many books for Christmas this year!? It is wonderful, because she loves books (as do we) and now we have a whole new plethora of choices for bedtime stories.? I’ve decided to start adding some of her favorites to my “Off the Shelf” reading list on the sidebar.? Many of these are worth revisiting, even if you don’t have a little one around to read them to.? I’ve really been? enjoying re-reading so many books from my childhood, as well as discovering new favorites.? And when you don’t have the time or the patience to tackle a 600-page Russian novel, these books provide almost instant closure.? It’s like great literature, 15 minutes at a time!
Agents of Creation
(If the quote looks familiar, it’s the same one from the “Interdependence” post, so feel free to skip ahead. I promise the rest of the post is different!)
“In fact, we are always meeting in nature with admirable examples of the close correspondence between the forms of the organs and the offices they fulfill, even when these bring no actual benefit to the animal.
Interdependence
“In fact, we are always meeting in nature with admirable examples of the close correspondence between the forms of the organs and the offices they fulfill, even when these bring no actual benefit to the animal. The insects which suck nectar from flowers of a certain kind, develop probosces adapted to the length of corolla which those flowers possess. But they also develop a coating, quite useless to themselves, by which they collect pollen, and this fertilizes the flowers they will visit afterwards. …
