We have had a deluge of difficulties lately, with the most recent one being that someone hijacked our blog. I have spent the last two days working to fix the many resulting problems but, as of now, our database is not there. With my wife’s recent onset of severe adrenal fatigue and a host of other problems including many projects that need finishing, a lightning strike that took out our DVD player, computer printer and TV antenna, maintenance around the homestead, a van and truck that need repairs and other financial difficulties, it is likely that we will take a hiatus from our POTF website, blog and YouTube channel for the near future. Hopefully we will at least get the blog posts back up in the next couple days.
Its now been a couple of days and our sever was able to help restore most of the posts. However, there are some more things we have to do to the blog and we just don’t have the time or energy to do them right now. So we are taking an hiatus for awhile while we decide what to do.
Our version of Independence Day, Inner Dependence Day, is one of our family’s favorite holidays. I wrote about what Inner Dependence Day means to us and how we celebrate it in some detail last year in A Fresh Approach to July 4th - Inner Dependence Day. Briefly, we celebrate this day by finding some new way to increase our self reliance. That is, we seek to shift at least one ineffective dependence upon prevailing opinions and approaches to life towards a more fruitful inner dependence.
The post ended with this observation:
We experience that shifting attention away from false dependence and on to the true inner dependence brings us into a more natural and flowing state. Building a family in which the adults navigate by their inner dependence on the Self and the children are raised to do the same by model and by precept creates a deeper, sweeter bond between family members and brings family life into a harmony that could not otherwise be enjoyed.
After working very hard, at times even relentlessly, to get some of the infrastructure of this new homestead set up, I think we appreciate the truth of that observation all the more. During this past year each family member has grown in character, skill, knowledge, teamwork, discipline, spiritual understanding and inner dependence. It has been a big year both inside and out.
My husband has outdone himself with the Year in Review 2008 videos linked below. He has put together video clips and commentary from the entire past year and given it all meaning and shape. As a matter of fact, we began celebrating our Inner Dependence Day today by watching it together as a family. What a jolt of perspective it gave! So many projects, so much teamwork, so many accomplishments. But even more than that, such change in the children. What glorious development can be seen in them.
On a practical level today:
I celebrated by making feta cheese entirely from our own creamy goats’ milk. This is the first year I have been able to do that. In the past, we have always had to content ourselves with cow feta. The slight goat flavor adds so much to this family favorite cheese, however, and a lot surely went into getting all that goat milk for the first time here!
My husband showed us the incredible videos he put together which took all kinds of computer problem solving that only people with Vista can truly appreciate. He also put in some more work on the basketball court he is surfacing with a cob/dung/cement mixture.
The children worked hard on their school work and finished up various books. Will put serious time and effort into finishing up Year 1 of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (MEP), the British math program we are using. This is significant because we only started using this program in March. He went through an entire year quickly by staying focused. Today he powered through about a week and a half worth of lessons just so that he could say that he finished it up on Inner Dependence Day.
We are instituting something new in The Lionsgate School as of today that will support the aspect of Inner Dependence Day that encourages self reliance. Every four or five weeks, we will have Project Week. During these weeks, some regular studies and routine will be maintained but most of the days will be cleared to allow for in-depth projects and pursuits for all of us. Drawing, sewing, gardening, building projects around the homestead, science experiments, house projects, bulk cooking, teaching life skills such as cooking and baking - all will have a special place in our homeschooling schedule now. I am really excited about this and can’t wait to see how it goes. Our first Project Week starts on Monday.
It is wonderful to have a day each year to take stock of these kinds of developments in the light of inner development. It gives us more strength and perspective to undertake whatever this year holds. All in all, we feel such gratitude today after our review. And that is especially appropriate for this day, for an inner dependence truly cultivated surely always brings with it gratitude and a yielding spirit.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
