learning…the fire in my soul

Jan 15, 2011

I have been attending a writing class this week, specifically, a class on mentoring writing and awakening the writer within us and in our students.

What a JOY it has been!

I haven’t taken a class like this for several years and it was time to immerse myself in a learning environment for a few days. I am at a phase of my mothering life when I can take off for a few days and my children will not fall apart. I can go away and study and work and give my heart to learning without worrying constantly about what is going on in my home. It’s a great phase to be in, but I am pretty sure it is not going to last…I feel a little spirit calling to me, a little energetic boy, and I am preparing myself to be a mother of a baby again. I am drinking green smoothies, working on my liver, and trying to get my home in order so that it will survive my months of puking my guts out. I also attended this amazing class. It was exactly what I needed before I go in to the cocoon of growing a baby. I learned lessons that will bless my family for years to come and writing tools that will help me in my own life and in the lives of people I mentor.

I love to learn. I think sometimes as moms we put this part of our lives on the back burner and forget all about feeding ourselves with new ideas. We forget that as we give and give and give to our precious children that we need to be replenishing that part of us that hungers for knowledge. That part in me is huge. I am like an insatiable fire, always desiring more ideas to flesh out in my own soul.

This class fed that part of me. I have much to think about and much to work on to implement the principles I learned in to our homeschool environment. I can’t wait to work on Blythe’s current book with her and to help her develop it according to her vision of the story. I can’t wait to play with words more with my family. It is going to be a blast! I can’t wait to write a story and have Blythe mentor me on my writing. We are going to learn to work together…I am confident of that. I can see it. I can feel it. Once my vision is this clear, I know it will happen because this vision will not leave me and I will work on it until we have created it.

Have you fed your fire lately? If not, what do you need to do to reclaim that part of you? Is it thirty minutes in the morning? Is it an hour in the afternoon? Is it a daily writing time? Is it taking a class? Is it forming a discussion group? Is it creating a group like the Inklings (I think I may need to do just that!)? Is it reading a book with your husband and discussing it over dinner? Is it creating a scholar group to really delve into the Great Debate? What is it? Think about it and then do it. Feed your fire and it will warm you. It will keep you going as you cook and clean and wash and wipe and feed and tuck and hug and hold and pack and scrub. It will give you greatness in your soul to ponder as you mop. It will open your mind to the possibilities of your life. It will keep you from drudgery. It will give you more to give your children.