FreeDay - Writing Prompts for Literary Magazine

Our first volume of The Motherhood Muse literary magazine is based loosely around four themes: metamorphosis, secret gardens, vessels into nature, and maternal instincts. Below are four writing prompts, one per theme, that may help you create some new ideas for writing about motherhood and nature.

Metamorphosis: Our lives are marked by big and small changes. Changes may help us to grow or regress in many aspects of our lives. Describe an experience you've had that helped you to reach a new level (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual). How did you change?

Secret Gardens: Nature offers us a place where we can find the freedom and peace in being ourselves. Children in particular express this by letting their guard down and playing with nature in a way that they share secrets and stories with nature. What secrets are shared when a child carves his/her name into a tree trunk, skips a stone across a pond, climbs up a tree, whistles with a bird, or makes a dam in a stream with rocks?

Vessels into Nature: There are numerous ways we are carried into nature (car, bike, skis, skates, boats, flippers, shoes, etc). Books also serve as vessels that transport our minds into nature. As a woman seeking to develop a deeper relationship with nature, which vessel challenges you the most? How might you gain more by utilizing this vessel over others?

Maternal Instincts: Since becoming a mother, I've learned that we all grow into motherhood. It is a continual learning process, and often our children are our teachers. How have your children enhanced your senses? What does the term 'human nature' mean to you as a mother?

A Natural Decor

As my toddler created a space rocket with her Tinkertoys and my baby squealed as she bounced in her Jumperoo, I rummaged through a box of fall decorations. I pulled out turkeys, pumpkins, gourds, cinnamon apple candles, and a few crumbled decayed leaves from last fall.

My box of decorations got me thinking about why I dress up our home for holidays. Decorations generate an excited energy in our homes. They add to the anticipation of an event, a day, a moment. And they especially help create cheer inside the home when we can't spend more time outdoors during the cold fall and winter months.

When I add nature to my decorations (like fall leaves, twigs, acorns, and more) it helps me make the connection between holidays and seasons. So often we find holidays lost in the commercial mainstream of materialism: shopping, buying, wanting, and forgetting. The act of adding bits and pieces of nature inside my home helps me to simplify my life. Seeing new buds on a branch place on my windowsill stirs my mind to look outside and recall childhood moments spent outdoors before we had computers, iPods, cell phones, and more. Those are the memories I want my children to have as well. So today we're going outside for a walk to collect Nature in our pockets and bring home for our windows.

What do you gather from nature to put inside your home? What does it mean to you?

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Colors of the Seasons

Andrea White of Blogging Mama writes for us today!

“That’s a goldfinch mommy!” Those were the words my son said to me as the bright yellow bird landed on the birdfeeder in the woods beyond the deck outside the sunroom window. I could have looked it up in our Guide to North American Birds but odds were my seven year old was right.

Lately he’s taken an interest in birds thanks to the recent month we spent living with his grandmother. In her small tree laden yard there are two birdfeeders. The large birdfeeder attracts a variety of birds from Robins to the occasional Blue Jay and the small feeder is specifically for Finches. My son has studied the guide book, watched with unmitigated interest and absorbed every fact his grandmother could give him about the birds.

My son loves to learn and as I thought about what I could write for The Motherhood Muse Blog I knew I had a limited knowledge of nature and the great outdoors. Sure I’ve been camping and grew up near a beautiful lake in Idaho but what did I really know about the inner workings of the ecological system around me?

It turns out I know more than I thought and what I didn’t know my son has been teaching me. He has a great respect for nature and a curiosity unlike any other for learning. When he opens his eyes and looks out into our backyard that is surrounded by a forested area he sees squirrels, birds, trees and bugs of all varieties. The enjoyment he gains in finding out about the life in our backyard makes me want to learn more too.

As a mother I often wonder if what I know is enough to pass onto my children. There are so many things I have already taught them and so much they have yet to learn. Each day I strive to expand their wonder of the world around us and show them the richness of the colors of the trees in fall. The vivid orange, the vibrant yellow and the deep luxurious reds are like paint on the trees. Every year I say that I have never seen anything more beautiful than that fall and those trees. In winter so much color disappears under a blanket of snow but when the sun shines down from the clear river of blue sky making diamonds on the ground again there is a color palette that can only be found in nature.

I hope that these observations of the colors of the seasons will turn into wondrous memories for them. During each season there are so many activities and projects we can do together to learn and have fun.

Learning about the world and nature doesn’t have to cost money. You can visit your local library and check out books on almost any topic and there are plenty of resources for researching what your kids are interested in. The internet is also a great source of inspiration for projects. Other parents, parenting blogs and parent and kid friendly sites encourage not only our children to learn but us as well.

I have really enjoyed this summer even though we’ve spent a good deal of it moving and have been surrounded by boxes and change. The one thing that has remained constant is the magic of nature around us and life in our backyard.

For more information about sites for learning about nature and sites for fun activities with your

children please visit these links:

http://www.scholastic.com/kids/weather/ A good site to learn about weather specifically geared for children
http://unplugyourkids.com/ Fun and activities every week that discover the joy of turning off the tv and turning in to learning
http://home.howstuffworks.com/nature-projects-for-kids.htm Nature projects for kids from the people at How Stuff Works

FreeDay - Vessels into Nature

I am writing this a few days in advance as we are traveling to see family via airplanes this week. Oh how I love airports as it is full of exciting characters. Although traveling with children makes it more adventurous, I still enjoy going to airports.

No matter if it is an airplane, train, car, boat, bike, or a pair of old sneakers, we get carried into nature via vessels. This FreeDay's activity is simple. Take a new approach to going into nature. Try out a different vessel.

If you take walks, try out a new path. Drive to a new park instead of the same one you always go to. Bike through your neighborhood streets instead of walking. Pick out library books for your children that have planes, boats, or trains and see what these vessels bring to mind.

A new vessel will help give you a unique experience with nature!