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Best sidekick ever. |
See that first sentence in my last post? This one:
"The core practise of the art of wildness is, I've decided, to let my body move."
Well that jumped up and bit me on the bum. To cut a long, shameful story shortish, during the last week I've been reminded that my daughter needs to let her body move too. Needs. One way of describing how she behaves naturally is Sensory Seeking Behaviour. It isn't a 'Special' Need but it is a strong one in her, albeit without any of the other things that can sometimes appear along with it. It is not unusual in kids who have spent time in institutions, and as good as we believe Snow's orphanage to be, it wasn't one-on-one or well-equipped.
I'd realised that this may be an issue for her when she was younger but as she did so well at school I just let it go. Sigh. Not knowing that she was suffering emotionally and physically. How did we unravel this sorry tale? Well she told me - again and again - that school (and, it transpires, home) gives her 'tummy ache'. After a long time spent messing about with food, amounts of food, liquids and bodily functions, I finally woke up and heard what her body was saying.
This was so liberating for my girl. She is happy again - and she had not been recently. She is wild and she is happy. And so the Universe has brought me to my teacher again. The one I was first called to in 2001, five years before I saw her face. "So you want to live in my wildness and set yourself free, eh? Okay then, let's see how that really looks. Let's see how you deal with the lack of peace and the mess and the reality of 'wild'! Have at it."
I was responsible for listening to her in ways other than the obvious and I didn't. She does not have the awareness yet to translate her body's voice into words. Both these things are going to change and, here in it's earliest days, this blog will change too. It's going to be about about both of us learning the art of wildness.
Clearly, I'm starting from a position of ignorance and naivety. It could get messy around here.