magic at martins creek

I call it magic. The mysterious force of life that is expressed in the natural world we are surrounded by. I notice it primarily with my children as they are the ones I am mostly engaged and fascinated with here as growing and blooming beings, and secondly with all that goes on in the natural world and the biodiversity and various ecosystems here, hence magic at martins creek. Here is some of it in the way they learn and create challenges for themselves to grow and evolve all the time. Life's never still, and when it appears to be, there is something simmering away on the inside to be expressed at random the next day, week or month as brilliant poetry, something drawn, conversation, or understanding to build upon and create something else. Learning all the time.

When they are given the space, they really do create and learn for themselves, they play and make mistakes and work it out, which I do believe is the prime example of life's longing for itself. We all do it one way or another (or sadly not), and children are experts at it. Lennox has been physically mastering going up and down obstacles. He chooses to go up and down steps, rather than the flat grass verge; up to the tree house and down again is a daily routine and here he could have chosen the easy path down the ramp, but instead he creates a challenge for himself:



It happens cognitively too.
I hurried Timo out of the shower the other day and it was met with a frustrated "awww, you disturbed my counting", (sorry Timo and quietly backed off) he was counting the 100+ mosaic tiles on shower floor with his very own created counting system, it used to be in twos, not sure exactly what he does at the moment.

I will note the last thing of the day for Caoimhe and her building of knowledge of human gestation. She's fascinated with it and brings specific books and asks for specific information. They all do this when they want to know more. If I don't bombard them with info, they almost come begging to be read to or shown how to do something. When we were talking about the baby coming down the birth canal part she (surprisingly) reflected on her recent-ish experience to say that she "really didn't like doing that" ~ hee, what a memory!

I think this is a bit of magic at work too. It's as if our sweet cat Tommi reads my mind and knows the great distress the chickens cause when they are out and muck up the freshly planted garden with baby seedlings or fresh mulch. They used to try and escape all the time and would find ways of getting out that we couldn't, but they haven't for many weeks even though there is a bit of a gaping hole in their door, and we are pretty sure this is why:



She torments the poor chickens to scared and frazzled balls of chicken fluff that are way too scared to venture out of their relatively small and sometimes barren enclosure to the lush pastures of yonder anymore!

(we do actually let the chickens out but haven't wanted to these past few weeks because of the new garden right next to where their dome is currently)