I have one niece on my side of the family and it is so fun because I have been the only one with kids on my side of the family for a long time. Willa is 19 months and the tiniest thing. They call her tiny. She is tiny. And so cute. When I picked them up from the airport, I didn’t recognize them at first glance because the last time I saw her, she had shorter hair and it was more brown. And now they have this little blonde baby. I am making a photo wall for my dad’s house and we needed to put some Willa pictures in it so we took a bunch.
Nicole’s husband is Jon Young who started and mentors many Wilderness Awareness schools. He did a workshop at my mom’s house last night and it was the first time I have heard him speak in a formal (even though it was casual) setting. He has a new book coming out called The Coyote Guide that should be out this fall. I think that is the title of it. A few years ago, Nicole told me I should read Richard Louv’s book, Nature Deficit Disorder, Last Child in the Woods. I’ve talked about the book before in my blog… such an interesting and wonderful book. I need to read it again. It’s all about connecting with nature and how many of us (as in older people) take for granted what we were able to do as kids and freely roam our neighborhoods and explore and be in touch with nature. And how important that is for children.
So Jon talked last night about connecting with nature and if you don’t have that connection which starts by just recognizing it’s there, you don’t care about it. You can’t. You care about what you think about. And if children are losing this contact with nature, where is that going to lead the world in the future. And so many more things that are connected with nature and people’s psyche’s. As soon as Jon’s book is out, I will link it up. His method is called “mentoring” because that is what the elders did for the children in many societies that are successful. Teaching by not teaching. Teaching by eliciting curiosity. To learn we need to be curious and we need to go to the edge. Jon said this is called Flight of Fight but he renamed it “edge” because it is the moment where you feel out of control and your heart races and you are just on the edge of death (in your mind or maybe literally). It makes you use all of your senses at once and doing this makes you feel alive. Kids do this naturally. I can think of many times when I was a kid doing crazy things where I felt that edge. It definitely lessens as you get older I think but doesn’t need to.
So many seemingly simple things that he touched upon but that are really quite complex and difficult to do because you have to put out an effort to do them. And the Nature Deficit Disorder book is well worth the read. Richard Louv actually lives in San Diego and a lot of the book takes place here which make it even more fun to read because I know all of the places he talks about. I will share more on this in the future I am sure. Here is a link to Jon’s other books.
Now on to some cute photos:
