benner creek

a sanctuary among the pines

My wife discovered it when she was a young girl. It is not accessed by a marked trail head. It is off the beaten path used mainly by logging trucks. You walk through tall grasses on gravel and sand. You have to hurdle a fallen tree, duck under a low hanging branch. Then you hear the trickling of water, and the curtain of pine trees open up onto a clearing. There sits a mass of boulders with a mountain stream and tall trees standing guard. A cathedral fashioned by Nature's hand. A quiet place for reflection and rejuvenation. There is an automatic sense of reverence. You discover yourself.

navigator and captain

charting the college journey

I remember the day he was born. The times just watching him sleep and breathe. Dips in the pool. The first day of preschool. A love of all things dinosaurs. Homeschool. The day he accidentally deleted a saved file on GameCube and I stayed up late just to get the game back to where he left off. Gymnastics, tae kwon do, fencing.  Days on the beach. Guiding his artistic abilities and his musicianship. Talks about respect, love, relationships. Then suddenly, he graduates from high school, and in the same summer, he leaves for college.

Those eighteen years were spent shaping his person, his character, his values - often just by his simply living under the same roof with us, his family. He has a bit of me, a bit of my wife, a bit of his relationship with his siblings and birth order, a bit of his environment growing up. All of it contributed to who he is, along with the spirit of his being, the angel prior to his physical form. He journeyed with us on uncharted water, and together we sought horizons near and far.

Now he embarks on the next leg of a journey that he makes alone. In spirit, we're with him. In love, we're with him. But at eighteen, and college-bound, he tests his own decision-making processes, and he develops trust and confidence in himself. How does one learn to navigate through life without the opportunity to think, feel, and act independently?

We helped him move into his dorm room, his whole family did. He is only five hours away. I have some level of peace as I carry the image of his space, his bed, his roommate, the campus, the city, which he will call his new home, his new proving ground, his new uncharted sea.

I carry the memories of his childhood. He will not be gone long; he will return from his journey a man with new skills, new knowledge, new insights. He will continue to forge his own path as he is his own navigator and captain. And I will continue to love him.

morning sun

first day of homeschool

From one of my first posts on the waldorf way blog in 2009:

"Thus my life flowed in two streams; I followed one as a lonely wanderer, the other in the lively companionship of people whom I had learned to love."

- excerpt from Rudolf Steiner's autobiography, Mien Lebensgang, in Hemleben's Rudolf Steiner, An Illustrated Biography.

We all need both paths. One spent in solitude. The other spent in togetherness. We learn something of ourselves as individuals and as members of a family and a community. We must give each other these moments as gifts. We grow in this learning. 

The cool morning sun of summer embraced Wilson and I in our walk together to the park on Monday. Homeschool perks - time spent in togetherness. Then a bit of dribbling practice - just Wilson, the ball, the court. Time spent in solitude, in personal growth.