Being still

Cairn Woods...
some children improving their gross motor skills and ability to empathise aka playing

I love being still. Not having to go anywhere or do anything. Having a cup of tea. Watching TV. Reading. Watching clouds scud by. I love being able to be quiet. Sometimes i think i may forget how it is to be quiet. To be able to rest.

There are no 'have tos' in life. I love that. You do not 'have to' do anything. Everything is a choice. We choose each moment. We choose each day. We choose how we live. We even choose how we die.

The day is wet. One of those heavy wet summer days which i do not mind. The garden is watered. There is a silence. We potter about, lie around. I sleep after lunch. I think about writing in my journal. I resist reading school related stuff.

On Friday we went out to Forest School, this time with Class One as well. It is such a delight to be able to work with a curriculum which says this is important, getting children to connect with the world around them his vital, getting them out into nature is crucial.

I have been reading up about childhood and play and it actually wants to make me laugh. I don't know how quite to put it apart from like this:

Part of the Forest School qualification is to explain why Forest School is good for children. So then you have things like - as they play they develop communication and social skills. Being outdoors helps with their gross and fine motor skills. It builds their confidence, imagination and boosts their cognative functions. It helps build their immunity and resilience.

Basically there is this whole lot of jargon to describe what is essentially such a simple, basic and natural thing that children do. Why do we have to overcomplicate things? (And i am not just talking about the Forest School qualification, because it is not their fault that we have landed ourselves in such a surreal situation.) Children play because it is something they want to do and need to do. Currently our society values all these 'skills' which I have listed up there - HOWEVER - what if it did not value those skills? What if one day those skills are not valued and instead skills like obedience and productivity and efficiency are more prized - then should they not play?

Children need to play because they need to play. They need to play because that is what they do. They must play because if they do not their will go stark raving bonkers.

End of.

We can justify it as much as we want to, but in the end let us not kid ourselves. Play does not need any justification. Being outdoors in nature does not need any justification. Just like equality and fairness and freedom does not require any justification. Like health and well-being and love and compassion and equanimity and peace and the continued existence of ALL life on Earth do not need justification. They are things which we should all try and work towards - just because.

And along with the just because is, if we do not work towards those things, there will be hell to pay for. As we are discovering...

AND just because we have gotten used to justifying economic growth and war and cruelty and torture and the exploitation of the environment with stats and figures and theories, and built whole industries such as the media and think tanks and even academic institutions and lobby groups to justify such abboherent practises, let us not confuse applying all these things to qualities which do not require us to say why we must do this.

Beauty, truth, justice, love, childhood and all those truly wonderful things which make being alive, like play, do not need to be justified. They simply are and all we need to do is give them room to be.