Butterfly Rescue

Anabelle rescued this butterfly out of the pond. She then kept it on the pine needle until its wings were dry enough to fly away.

Math Whiz

Well, I don't like Bratz dolls, but I've relaxed my stand on refusing to allow them in the house. That was making them FAR too coveted. So now Belle is allowed to have them IF she pays for them herself. Today, she really really wanted a Diamond Bratz Kid or whatever they're called. I told her they were $20 and she needed to use her own money. So she pulled out her change jar and started counting. I told her to just get the quarters and make stacks of 4 until she got to $20. I can't BELIEVE how fast her brain clicked on that -- As soon as I said it, she wailed, "But that's EIGHTY quarters!" like it was going to take forever or something. I just couldn't believe she figured it out that fast.

Wealthy Witches

Anabelle was coloring a picture of a witch and she asked, "Is the witch our goddess?"
"Well, yes, in a way…"
And I explained how that picture of the witch in the pointy hat, etc. was the product of something else. I asked her if she remembered those people who started believing a different way and wanted everyone to believe the same thing as them. She did remember. So I told her they made the picture of the witch look “scary,” when really, that’s just an exaggerated version of the Crone. And as she colored a picture of “Lil Witch,” she told me this:

"This is called a Wealthy Witch."

"Oh? What is a Wealthy Witch?"

"They help god to make healthy people. So actually, we weren’t ALL just made from god.
"And a Wealthy Witch can look any way you want it to look. It can look any way it might be.
"And sometimes … A Wealthy Witch might seem like a ghost, but they help to give birth to children.
"Yes, they’re in the hospital and they might seem like a ghost because they’re invisible, but really they’re helping to give birth to the children.
"There are lots of different kinds of Wealthy Witches."

I won't explain my own interpretation of this. I think hers is interesting enough.

SARA, Anabelle's BEST PET EVER

Anabelle loves her Leopard Gecko and claims it is her best pet EVER. That's a pretty big claim, considering how many favorites she's had in the recent and not-so-recent past. Anyway, Sara is the lucky one and here are a few photos to show how big she's getting. She was just a little baby when we got her, but she's growing ...


And as she grows, she's getting stronger and stronger. She really scrambles to try to get out of the hand and look around. We have to be really careful of her tail. It's nice and fat like it's supposed to be on a healthy lizard, but everything we've read says that it can break off easily. Even though she could grow a new one, there's the risk of infection if it comes off.

Here's a nice pic of Sara in all her gecko glory ... I have to admit, the little lizzy hand on the little thumb is really cute.

Anabelle wrote a story ...

We haven't read The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but Belle claims it as her inspiration for the following story:

The Fourteen Dancing Princesses

i am let me tell you a story here it is:
once apon a time thare where 14 danseing princesses
trare father was a king and a warrior he was alway's thae gard warrior
and garded the whole kingdom and was soon in a big war.
the pricesses ware vary vary vary scard of thare father in a big war.
they where so scard that they dressd up as MEN!
and refused to join the big war and fight and pertect thare father.
they soon noticed that they coud not do it BUT!
they soon noticed that they really did IT!!!!!!
and thare father was still alive
and they all whare as happy as can BE!
and they all lived happly
ever after
the end.:did you like it?

I often see myself in Anabelle's eyes ...

... I mean, not only am I looking into the eyes of my daughter, but I am seeing my own eyes looking back at me It's hard to describe. It's like I could look in a mirror and look into my own eyes as a child. And that was never more true than tonight. See for yourself --



Seriously, can you even believe that my mother ever took me out of the house???



However, I'm not quite sure that my eyes ever looked quite that ... animated. Therefore, Anabelle makes even these glasses look GOOD! JEEPERS CREEPERS!!! Where did she get those eyes?

Baby Coming

This is one of Anabelle's recent creations. When I took this pic, the paint was still wet. I commented on her cool choices of color and asked her to "tell me about this picture." And you notice the shapes in the middle stripe? Well, that is the beginning of a baby ... kind of reading the symbols from right to left. Starting from the right, you notice the beginning cells that get together to make a baby. When you see the first circle -- that is when the cells first meet. And in the last circle, you see that the cells are starting to divide. I asked about the designs in the top stripe and she said, "Those are just more of the mother's cells on top." I asked her what the title of the piece would be and, after brief thought, she decided to call it "Baby Coming."

The Rule of Three

I just explained the Rule of Three to Anabelle for the very first time. She is endlessly fascinated with incense ... We just cleaned the stove till it shone and then lit incense on top of it -- The stove is where we fix the food that nourishes our bodies, so ... we want it to be clean and we want it to be blessed. So anyway, OF COURSE, she wanted her own incense again. And I told her that she can't just carry incense around the house all the time -- she needs to form an intention with it. So her intention is to continue our house blessings until we finally have it clean like we want it (it's slowly headed in that direction after our clutter issues are being worked out with the use of industrial-strength garbage bags). And the reason this matters to her is so that we can have a HOUSE PARTY when it is finally cleaned the way we want it. YEAH!!!

Oh, anyway, the Rule of Three. It was just kind of a "milestone," because it was the first time I've mentioned it to her. When we were discussing "intentions," as usual, Spiral Rhythms was playing in the background. And just at that moment, the song said, "Ever mind the Rule of Three." So it was the perfect time to introduce the concept. I just told her that whatever thoughts and actions she sends out into the Universe will come back to her three times. So she must make sure that what she puts out into the Universe is what she wants to come back to her. She just trotted through the classroom with her incense, so I suppose the classroom is now blessed. :-)

Did you know that Buddha is a goddess?

This is not the first time Anabelle has presented me with this theory of hers. A few weeks ago, she told me, "Buddha is the Goddess of Everything." So today we talked about it. When she said that Buddha is a goddess, I replied, "I don't really think so. Everyone came from the goddess, but Buddha was not a goddess." And the young genius replied, "Since everything came from the goddess, everyone is a goddess." *phew* Not sure how to respond, but it seques perfectly with the idea of the Christ-Mind.

And because we're ECLECTIC ...

After our wild goddess dancing in the kitchen last night, Anabelle read something about komodo dragons on the side of her shampoo bottle. And said asked, "How did god make the first komodo dragon?"
"Hmmmmm.... I don't know. What do you mean?"
"I think komodo dragons were probably the first animals on earth."

All the interest with firsts came with our last trip to the beach area of Lake Ray Roberts. We always find lots and lots of little shell fossils and it started a discussion of what the earth was like before there were people. And then, of course, Anabelle started to wonder about The First Person. From my notes on that day, I found this:
"What if, instead of 'one first person,' a whole bunch of people began to appear at around the same time? What do you think?"
"I don't know ..."
Anyway, we talked about Native Americans, Columbus (because he's the one that used the word "Indians" and WHY he used that word), Pilgrims, christianity in England, etc. etc. We talked about how all the people in America today, except the Native Americans, were originally from somewhere else. And so on....
It's actually morning right now and I'm much better at blogging in the evening. Just wanted to post about god and the komodo dragons.

You're the rain and I'm the sun ...

So it's Sunday and you know ... a lazy day. And Anabelle and I were cooking dinner, shrimp stirfry. And Anabelle made the stirfry. The whole thing. And while she stood and stirred endlessly, I told her, "That's why they call it stirfry," as if it were a history lesson or something. And while the sauces simmered, we danced. The song that brought us together was "Dance, My Children, Dance" by Spiral Rhythms. I'll get to the lyrics, but what Anabelle and I learned was this ...

We found ourselves dancing in a circle, sometimes slow and sometimes fast ... Sometimes by ourselves, and sometimes with our arms linked ... but always in the circle. And we began to talk about how that must have been what the first people on the earth felt like. That they would gather together in circles to honor the earth, our first goddess. And we talked about how perhaps the first goddess may very well be Mother Earth. Which led to a discussion of circles and cycles ... inhale, exhale ... dance ... under the moon ... in a circle ... around the fire ... together. Which led us to compare (because it's Sunday) what the very first people on earth worshipped and all the other kinds of worship that there are nowdays. And how all those religions all started with our common ancestor ... the first people dancing in a circle, around the fire, under the moon. *whew* It was like a history lesson or something. And all the while we twirled around the kitchen together, dancing and laughing ... worshipping.

And as we danced, Anabelle began to narrate our movements -- She said, "We move forward and backward, together and apart -- When we're like this, you're the rain and I'm the sun. But when we move back like this, I'm the rain and you're the sun." And she explained to me this ...

thare woud be no sun or rain if thare was no earth that we live on. anabelle

My daughter is a genius. And here's the song to which we were dancing:

Dance, My Children, Dance
(PJ Seale 2002)

I call the earth, the fire, the wind and rain
Dance my children dance
To guide you on this mortal plane
While you, dance children dance

I made the ground soft beneath your feet
So you could, dance children dance
And the fire to bathe you with it’s heat
While you, dance children dance

I made the rain to fall to cool you down
While you, dance children dance
And the wind to blow you dry again
While you, dance children dance
I made the sun by day and the moon at night
So you could, dance children dance
So you’re always in my loving light
While you, dance children dance
And you dance with the
Sun and the moon and the wind and the rain
And you dance with the earth and you dance with the flame
And you dance with the stars in the velvet sky
All things dance in the circle of life

So I call you to my circle now
Dance my children dance
In peace and love and togetherness
May you, dance children dance
Always, dance children dance
All things dance, children dance