Obaitori

The Opening of the Montessori Community Garden

 

This coming Saturday is the opening of our community garden. You are very welcome to attend & also to become a member of the co-operative. You do not need to be enroled at the school - we still consider you as family. We start at 8am & need a whole lot of newspaper, egg cartons & straw bale for the garden mandalas. We are having a raffle with prizes very kindly donated by Eternal Creation & some yummy fruit muffins & juice to buy - all proceeds going back into the garden. We welcome you with your children, newspaper, Love & wheelbarrow on Saturday 30th October.

 

 

We need a name for our garden. Suggestions are also welcome.

The Central Coast Montessori Community Garden & Co-Operative Beginnings

It started with one person's idea a couple of months ago & has blossomed into the very tender early green buds of the Central Coast Montessori Community Garden & Co-Operative.The idea was gladly & gratefully received by the children & families of the school.

Soon a few parents & teachers met to discuss the idea of the garden & co-op. We gathered at the Bamboo Buddha one Sunday morning over coffee & breakfast. We discussed the position of the garden & garden beds, gardening methods, planting, a distribution shed, a cow paddock, a wood fired pizza oven, friendship garden, an Indigenous area & a whole lot of other things. We were a table of very excited & enthusiastic folk as we sat & discussed the endless possibilities of our childrens' future.

 

These stones don't look like much but they are the foundation stones for our garden. Here, as a community of families, we will build five mandala beds.

In this other area, which also doesn't look like much either, except a whole lot of possibility, we will start more garden beds for trellis type plants. We plan to use a variety of methods including, no-dig gardens, bio-dynamics & Permaculture principles. It is the idea that the children will have a lot of involvement & decision making within the gardens. They will be exposed to many gardening methods. They will also plant a fruit tree which they will tend to with their family & they will eventually be involved with chickens, goats & cows.

A few weeks later we met on site with the very beautiful, Kerrie Anderson; permaculture extraordinaire, to discuss the finer details;

The land at our school is very beautiful & undulating. Since the school began, everything that has been planted has grown with particular triumph. So too could be said about our very lovely children who attend.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

~ Greek proverb ~

A Cool Change

Traditionally, Australia does not have deciduous trees, plants or flowers. The English, who colonised Australia in 1770 and the Chinese brought with them flora species from home. Deciduous  trees grow inside the property line of our school, the Central Coast Montessori School.  Sometimes these beautiful trees look out of place & sometimes they look as though they have always lived there. The children and I have been watching them change.

Australia is the planet's sixth largest country. It is the world's largest island.

Australia is a large continent, with very different weather patterns all over it. Yet since European occupation, the 'traditional' view of the weather has been that of the Northern Hemisphere, with four seasons; spring, summer, winter and autumn.

These patterns do not fit this large diverse country. A beautiful woman named Dorothea Mackellar described Australia in a poem called, ‘The Core of My Heart’ later retitled, 'My Country.' Here is but one stanza, visit here for more on this incredible woman.

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains

Of ragged mountain ranges

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror --

The wide brown land for me!

Everywhere in Australia the weather is localised and different and for a look into Australia's Indigenous weather report and your own area this meteorological site might be relevant and interesting (Nic B, think you will resonate with this).

"In Aboriginal society one of the laws is you never tell another person's knowledge," said Frances Bodkin, a botanical author, teacher and traditional storyteller at Mount Annan Botanic Garden. Bodkin is a traditional D'harawal Aboriginal descendant and one of the last people in Sydney to inherit tens of thousands of years of weather wisdom.

In the Sydney area, koalas fighting signify hot weather approaching. (Pic. NPWS)

"The knowledge runs through women. The women have most things to do with plants so the seasons are most important to them anyway, in terms of food and medicines."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After several weeks of humidity in March that required 3 showers a day I welcomed the cool change that sprang upon the coast line last week. I pulled the quilt out from the drawer for the first time this year & snuggled under it for awhile.

I was born in April & I have this theory that your favourite season is the one you were born in. Welcome sweet cool change ~ autumn. Does the theory work for you? 

It also got me thinking about quilts & two beautiful children’s books that I love to read whilst wrapped in a well known/loved quilt. These are the types of books that are very appealing to me. I like them alone (preferably), tucked up in bed & read very slowly. . .

Mother Earth & Children: a quilted fairy tale by Sibylle Von Olfers. This story describes children getting ready to go into another season. They prepare by thinking, sewing, singing & acknowledging the change.

The Gift of the Quiltmaker by Jeff Brumbeau, Gail De Marcken.  One of the best children's books I have ever read. Through her story, this author describes the art of giving, non-possessiveness & ultimate Love. The illustrations are delicate & detailed. This is real children's literature. Most children's libraries will have multiple copies.

 

Deciduous trees line the fence at Montessori ~ Central Coast, N.S.W Australia.

 

Becoming the Embodiment of Love (Prema Vigraha)

Live in Love. Breathe in Love. Sing in Love. Eat in Love.

Drink in Love. Walk in Love. Talk in Love. Pray in Love.

Meditate in Love. Think in Love. Move in Love.

Write in Love. Die in Love.

Purify your thought, speech & action in Love.

Bath & plunge deep in the sacred waters of Love.

Taste the honey of Love

& become the embodiment of Love.

~ Swami Sivananda Saraswati.

And now, a few images of our school from this week...

 

Story telling...

Mama Apple Orchard

Classroom mantra

Watercolours

Sakura ~ cherry blossom mural ~ preparatory classroom for two year olds. 

And now a few from home...

Make a beautiful weekend.

The Opening of the Central Coast Montessori School

Like the beauty of a flower unfolding our school opened this week.

The beginning of this journey, for me, began almost a decade ago. Dimitri and I would passionately discuss education, life & spirit in the playground of the Inner City Montessori School. The idea, his idea, was to create a school on the Central Coast, NSW, Australia. There were many minds and hands that 'built' the beginnings of this school. We all wanted to create a beautiful place, a Casa dei Bambini, a children's house.

About three years ago the physical signs of the school started to appear. Two & a half semi-rural acres with a house at Wamberal, NSW, Australia.

                                                                                                                Indira aged 2

Dimitri soon began facilitating a prepatory programme. A space where young children & their families could be gently guided into the Montessori philosophy. Soon a happy, supportive & enthusiastic community emerged.

Two years later Dazla built the first 3-6 year old classrom, called FEILEACAN – butterfly in Gaelic.

 

And so this week, with the classroom ready, 30 eager children brought in their lunches, journals, indoor slippers & fruit to share, & we began - with hope.

Here are some photos.

Peace is every step.