Tree of Life Mothering

I am so excited! Just as excited as these youth in the picture! LEMI Training is next week in Salt Lake City. If any of you have wondered how to homeschool a teenager, LEMI is the answer. LEMI stands for Leadership Education Mentoring Institute. It was founded by my friends Tiffany Earl and Aneladee Milne. It trains ordinary moms and dads on how to mentor youth in studying “scholar projects,” which involve classics in history, government, math, science, and Shakespeare’s plays. If you want to homeschool a teenager, then it’s vital to provide them with an environment where they can have friends who are studying the classics as well. They see other people studying hard and that motivates them to study hard too. LEMI teaches you how to teach these classes in a commonwealth school setting. The commonwealth school setting helps them find a “tribe” where they can fit in somewhere beyond their family, where they know people value hard work, studying the classics, and morals. It used to be the case that you could find this at your church congregation or high school, but that’s not always the case now.

Note: If you want to learn how to set up a commonwealth, then please get in touch with Brenda over at New Commonwealth Schools. Don’t be fooled by people who say they have a “commonwealth school” when they really have a mom school or a co-op. There’s a difference! A New Commonwealth School is set up to last forever even when the current leaders fall away or die or move on because their kids get older. The vision of a New Commonwealth School is much broader and longer and deeper than any mom school.

You can attend the Thursday portion of the LEMI training for free. It’s in downtown Salt Lake at the public library on 500 south on July 11 from 9 AM to 1 PM. Go to this page here here and scroll down the page to get to the part about the “LEMI Philosophy How to Mentor Your Teen.”

LEMI is adding training in two new scholar projects this year. One of them is the Edison Project, which is the self-directed scholar phase project. This is the level of scholar phase before youth go off to college. My daughter took this class the past two years and it was perfect for her. If you have ever felt that homeschooled youth get lost in their older teen years, this is the perfect class for you to learn about. Click here to listen to a free download about the project and then go over to this page again, looking on the right hand side to register for the training for the Edison Project.

A few years ago my daughter went on a retreat for the self-directed scholar phasers she was involved with. Here is my blog post about it.

Yesterday I got to sleep in, the first Friday I’ve been able to do so in a while, because my Hebrew hiking class ended last week. My friend Katie taught the class and she designed it too. For seven weeks, starting in May, we would meet every Friday morning at 7:30 AM at a trailhead. Sometimes I went alone, sometimes I brought some of my children, one time I brought them all. The class was for me and my scholar children, the little ones just played. Every week she would teach us three Hebrew alphabet letters. For every letter she had a color associated with it, along with some keywords, the ancient pictograph of the letter, a story from the Bible, a number, a musical chord, and an essential oil. After we talked about the letter and took notes from her lecture, we would hike up a mountain and look for things in nature that reflected the letter or the symbolism. Then we would move on to the next letter.

I feel like I just barely scratched the surface. This class helped me get more in touch with poetry and nature and God and the wondrous gift of language. There’s so much more to know! We had this book to study from on our own. The cover shows all 22 letters of the alphabet. So three letters a week times seven, with four letters the last week.

Here some pictures I took from the hikes. You might be wondering why I took the class. It’s because Hebrew has many connections to my faith as a Latter-day Saint. The Book of Mormon says this about the Hebrew language in Mormon 9:33:

And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no 

imperfection in our record.

Sounds like Hebrew must be a perfect language! I want to take the class again and study the material more! I think it’s cool that Joseph Smith had a class in his school of the prophets to learn about Hebrew from a man named James/Joshua Sexias. Here’s the Hebrew grammar book they used.

This class totally broadened my vision. I loved discovering all these trails I didn’t know about after living here for over 8 years. Thank you Katie for such an inspiring environment for connecting with God!

Here’s a great story that illustrates the power of mother bear chemistry, a concept I teach in my Mothers Who Know class. One of my moms was asking about a story that would not bring icky feelings from a negative scenario,  but would still generate the powerful positive feelings from mother bear chemistry.

The story comes from the life of Kathleen Eyring, wife of Pres. Henry B. Eyring, as told by Elder Robert D. Hales in an Ensign article:

During their years in Rexburg, Eyring family members grew closer to each other. By then Hal and Kathleen had four sons: Henry J., Stuart, Matthew, and John. Later they would be blessed with two daughters: Elizabeth and Mary Kathleen. But even in a small, rural farm town, Hal and Kathleen had to be vigilant. One of their concerns was the amount and quality of television programming that their sons watched. Henry J., the oldest son, recalls an experience that made a significant difference in the spirit of the Eyring home.

“My brother and I were in front of the TV one Saturday night around midnight,” says Henry J. “A tawdry comedy show that we shouldn’t have been watching was on. The basement room was dark except for the light from the television. Without warning, Mother walked in. She was wearing a white, flowing nightgown and carrying a pair of shears. Making no sound, she reached behind the set, grabbed the cord, and gathered it into a loop. She then inserted the shears and cut the cord with a single stroke. Sparks flew and the set went dead, but not before Mother had turned and glided out of the room.”

Unnerved, Henry J. headed to bed. His innovative brother, however, cut a cord from a broken vacuum and connected it to the television. Soon the boys had plopped back down in front of the television, hardly missing any of their show.

“Mother, however, got the last laugh,” Henry J. says. “When we came home from school the next Monday, we found the television set in the middle of the floor with a huge crack through the thick glass screen. We immediately suspected Mother. When confronted, she responded with a perfectly straight face: ‘I was dusting under the TV, and it slipped.’ ”

President Eyring honored his wife’s wishes, the children honored their mother’s desires, and that was the end of television in the Eyring home. “For the most part, Mother leads through quiet example,” Henry J. observes. “However, she is also inspired and fearless. Mother’s assertiveness has been a great blessing to her children and grandchildren. Both in pivotal moments and in daily routines, she has forever changed the course of our lives.”

President Eyring still credits his wife for giving him a desire to do and be his best, and he’s grateful that she has blessed her children in the same way. He is quick to credit her for her example and spiritual influence on their family. She is equally complimentary, expressing gratitude for his sensitivity to the Spirit and the effective way he has taught and lived the gospel in their home.

May we all have the tenacious, ferocious, protectiveness of Sister Eyring. Her family was blessed immensely for getting rid of their TV:

President Eyring still credits his wife for giving him a desire to do and be his best, and he’s grateful that she has blessed her children in the same way. He is quick to credit her for her example and spiritual influence on their family. She is equally complimentary, expressing gratitude for his sensitivity to the Spirit and the effective way he has taught and lived the gospel in their home.

“There was no question in Hal’s mind who was first in his heart,” she says. “He lived in a very competitive environment with competent associates at Stanford, but he always put his family first. At the end of every day, when we were together in the evening, he would ask, ‘Who haven’t we called?’ Then, guided by the Spirit, he would go to the telephone and touch base with a member of the family who needed to have contact that evening.”

With no television in the home, family members had more time for each other and more time to pursue interests, develop talents, and engage in sports and other activities as a family. Over the years President Eyring has honed his cooking skills (he makes his own bread), discovered a knack for woodcarving, and learned to paint with watercolor. On occasion he will send a thank-you note or a watercolor painting as a remembrance.

Over a week ago I went on this great mini-vacation to southern Utah, which included a pedicure and kefir smoothies. I got to take my two sons to the Youth for Freedom camp and stay with my darling sister-in-law while they were camping. Here’s how you can take the same vacation:

1. Find out the Monday before the camp starts on Thursday that your two sons are going to a summer youth leadership camp, called Youth for Freedom. You have seen the magic of the camp in your older son’s life and want the same magic for your younger kids. Older son is on a mission or he would be driving the kids to the camp himself. You love taking your kids to the camp because it usually means you can visit your sister-in-law.

2. Call your sister-in-law who lives in southern Utah to see if she can host you while your boys are at the camp. Agree to drive her daughter to the camp after you pick her daughter up close to I-15.

3. Scramble to find 6 more kids to take with you in your 12 seater van, along with your 5 out of your 7 kids, so that you can get people to pay for the gas for the trip. Make lots of phone calls because the original kids you thought you maybe could take are going with someone else.

4. Wonder if your 11 year old, almost 12 year old, is really ready to go to this camp. He is rather adolescent. Find out at the end of camp that he was being obnoxiously loud. One of the counselors told him to “Be quiet, child!” Then he totally changed the subject by asking the counselor if she knew his older brother, who was a counselor last year. That made her forget she was irritated by him and sidle up to him to find out the latest news about the older brother.

5. Get awakened by your little kids at 2:30 AM the morning of departure, when the set time to wake up was 4, because your little kids are so excited to see their cousins in southern Utah while the big kids are at the camp.

6. Tell the kids to be quiet and try to fall back asleep. You never actually fall asleep but lie there with visions of the magic of visiting sister-in-law and YFF land in your head. Get up at the real appointed time of 4 AM and leave at 5:10 to get to the camp around 11:40 AM.

7. Make three stops along the way before you hit the southern end of Utah county to pick up the six kids who are riding with you. five of the six kids are cute girls. Start wondering about if your 15 year old son wants to sit in the middle of all of them. See the large amount of baggage each one has, including ginormous suitcases, huge guitars, and king-sized mattresses (just-kidding!) Seriously wonder if you are going to fit everything in your car without having to call a U-haul rental place at 7 in the morning. Wasn’t this just a three day camp? Remember that some of these people are girls who must want to pack everything from two pillows to curling wands to karaoke machines. Feel sympathy towards the pioneers who left chairs and tables and pianos along the wayside of their trek.

8. Have a ton of fun driving south. Make your 15 year old son blush when you start thinking about the air conditioning reaching the back seat, so you, totally innocently and inadvertently, ask him, because he is in the middle row, to ask the young ladies in the back row if they are hot. Enjoy the charming conversation of the 18 year old young man, telling you about how he loves Star Wars and that he knows if he talks to someone and they don’t know anything about Star Wars the relationship is over. Nearly die laughing as you drive through Zion National Park listening to your 15 year old son recite entire Studio C episodes. You almost laugh so hard you can’t keep your eyes open to drive through the winding canyon.

9. Drop the kids off and get them checked in. Feel the magic and synergy of all the youth up there in the mountains talking about the classics and leadership and freedom. Wish you could stay there with them. Help niece get acclimated and find a friend to run off to lunch with. Find a few people to visit with for a little bit. Then drive back through beautiful Zion National Park to find sister-in-law’s new home in St. George.

10. Enjoy your visit in St. George. Love, love, love your sis-in-law’s new home with all of its built-ins: desk, cabinets, shelves, and even a china hutch!

Your 7 year old daughter refuses her aunt’s sleeping arrangements, which splits her apart from her inseparable brother who is 18 months older. Daughter spends the next hour glowering in a corner, giving the evil eye to her aunt. Feel mortified and humored at the same time when she finally blurts out at her aunt, “I do know how to sleep on the floor you know, next to my brother!” That was her backwards, impolite way of asking if she could sleep in the family room with him on the floor. Remind yourself to spend lots of devotionals at home in the coming year teaching about politely asking for what we want.

11. Feel delighted that sister-in-law suggests you do pedicures Friday morning after you watch the little kids tell flannelboard stories. You haven’t given yourself a pedicure since before you get married over 20 years ago. Feel totally joyous that the exact color you wanted in nail polish is in your niece’s stash of nail polish. You haven’t had a morning where you just sat around watching, listening, and nail polishing,  in years.

12. Have fun teaching your Mothers Who Know class on the phone and then have even more fun taking the kids with your sis-in-law and their cousins to the splash pad, “river”, and merry go round in downtown St. George.

11. Totally love the kefir smoothies your sis-in-law fixes for breakfast. Pick her brain about everything from curly girl hair to the GAPS diet to marriage to running LEMI commonwealths. Once again wish you could live in the same town. Remember that your husband actually is supposed to be applying for a position in St. George and call him and remind him about it.

12. Drive back up through Zion National Park to pick up the kids on Saturday. Spend some time keeping your little kids supervised at the camp because it’s not over yet. Wish that you could take them out on the rowboats on the pond but feel outnumbered with three little kids to just one you.

Eventually get them over to where the action is at the pavilion so you can watch the climax of the whole event, the oral exams for the college scholarship. They entertain themselves by finding a sucker in the bushes and sort of share it.

13, Get to watch most of the oral exams for the Andau competition. Reminisce about your son winning the competition two years ago. Feel disappointed that the examination committee does not even ask this year’s competitors tough questions, like they did with your son two years ago, about what each article in the Constitution is about, what the Cuban Missile Crisis was all about, and what the federal government’s role in education is. Instead they ask lame, touchy-feely questions.

13. Leave two hours later than planned because the whole thing ended two hours later. Enjoy driving back home on Highway 89 through Utah’s Color Country. Wish that you could live in such charming small town farming environs. Get home after midnight because of a bazillion potty stops with so many little kids, including two stops on the side of the road amongst the bushes, and a traffic jam when I-15 gets narrowed to two lanes. Fall asleep exhausted with a smile on your face because your son’s vision that was on his Vision Board of going to Youth For Freedom came true!

July 23rd is our next start date for Mothers Who Know. This is such a powerful program! You can go over here to get all the details.

Here are some testimonials from moms who have taken the course.

I have decided to do a giveaway of a registration for every session I teach. If you would like to be entered for the drawing for the giveaway, please comment below.

I was talking to a friend about essential oils, thinking she already had a basic knowledge about them. She surprised me by asking, “But what would I use essential oils for?”

I had to smile inside and chuckle a little. She was asking me about essential oils as if they were as useless as moondust. Essential oils can be used for soooo many things. Healing, cleaning, cooking, and grooming are among the things I use them for. I know some people use them for gardening and pet care too. The big plus to using them is that they don’t have any toxins and therefore side effects.  Who knows, maybe some day we will find that they can be used for gasoline!

Well, until then, I will cover what I already know that they can be used for.

Healing

Whatever ailment you have, chances are that an essential oil can help your body cure that ailment. All the OTC drugs, with their nasty side effects, can be replaced by essential oils.

Here are some examples:

• pepto bismol, with its artificial colors, can be replaced with fennel essential oil
• a mentholatum rub, with its toxic ingredient of turpentine, can be replaced with eucalyptus essential oil.
• lavender essential oil can soothe sunburns, burns, rashes, and any skin irritation
• tea tree oil works great to fight yeast infections. If you have ever had a vaginal yeast infection, you have my sympathy. Just dilute with a little coconut oil and put it right where the itching is. You can make “tampons” out of cocoa butter with a few drops of tea tree by scooping out balls, adding the oils, then freezing and then inserting when they get hard.
• lemon, lavender, and peppermint used together can relieve hay fever. Take 2 drops of each every 15 to 20 min.
• peppermint oil is a natural fever reducer

Summer Fun

To relieve bug bites, layer peppermint oil with lavender. The peppermint will take the itch away and the lavender will act as an antihistamine.

Lemon oil is great at removing grease from barbecue grills.

A fun alternative to soda is to add a few drops of lemon oil or other citrus oil to water and stir. Add stevia for sweetness. For the bubbly effect, make homemade kefir soda here. You can find some fantastic flavors from oils to use, like tangerine, lemon, lime, or wild orange. Or make spearmint basil lemonade, found here.

Cleaning

Lemon or tea tree oil diluted in water are great at disinfecting. You can also use lemon, or any citrus oil, to remove Sharpie marker off walls or other hard surfaces!

Grooming

My youngest child is now potty-trained, so I don’t use baby wipes like I used to, but when I did, I loved making homemade baby wipes with lavender and tea tree oil. The recipe for baby wipes and recipes for other personal care items are linked here.

I brush my teeth with baking soda and a drop of peppermint oil. It sure makes holistic toothpaste shopping a lot cheaper and easier.

For toxic-free deodorant, you can a tiny bit of fractionated coconut oil with a drop or two of your favorite essential oil, like tea tree, under your arms. Now you don’t have to find a deodorant free of parabens or aluminum.

I hope that gives you some ideas for nontoxic living! Cancer has risen to epidemic proportions in our society, and I do wonder if it has to do with the increase in man-made chemicals we are bombarded with. I prefer to minimize my exposure to them by using these essential oils.

It was 20 years ago this summer that I was pregnant for the first time, working every day at the Univ. of Utah Medical Center as a lab assistant to a medical school professor. As I rode the bus to my job and then back to our apartment in Sugar House every day, my tummy got bigger and bigger, and my yearnings to be a nesting mom at home got huger and huger. It was one of the happiest days in my life when I quit work at 37 weeks pregnant to be a stay at home mom. I gave birth to my beautiful son 3 and 1/2 weeks later. To celebrate my 20 years of having babies, I am reviewing the above book by Jennetta Billhimer, entitled Wise Childbearing.

How I wish this book had been around when I was first pregnant! I was a sucker for the popular, What to Expect When You Are Expecting, which has a limited view about the possibilities of birth. It’s basically a book on how to have a typical conveyor belt hospital birth that treats women like machines. This involves yielding to all the hospital procedures that are not necessarily for you or your baby’s best interest. If you don’t understand what the problem is with typical hospital birth, then read Wise Childbearing, and watch Ricki Lake’s movie, The Business of Being Born. See below.

Wise Childbearing is a super resource for all expecting parents because it opens up your mind to all the choices and possibilities involved with birth. For instance:

• It is possible and safe to have a baby at home.
• It is possible to have a baby without medication.
• It is possible to have a baby without being cut to let the baby out.
• It is possible to have a joyful, pain-free birth!
• Nutrition makes a huge difference as to lessening of birth problems, such as preeclampsia
• Doulas and husbands can play key roles in helping the birthing mom feel safe and empowered.

After having 7 babies, including 5 natural births, 4 home births, and 2 water births, all of these concepts are basically  “Duh!” statements for me now but they were not obvious when I was first-time, newly pregnant. If you are a first-time mom, seeking to know all of your birthing options, this is the pregnancy and birth book for you. If you are a seasoned veteran mom of natural birth, you probably know everything in it. I don’t know, maybe not. I learned a few things. I really like that is says that eating fat is good for you and it will make your skin more stretchy and supple so that it easier for your body to stretch and let that baby out. Fat makes you happy, oh yeah! (As long as it is good, natural fat like saturated fat, or olive oil.)

I love how this book has so many ideas in one place: everything about birth anyone would want to know (including some comfort measures for labor that I hadn’t heard of like belly dancing and using a rebozo), plus information on cloth diapering, attachment parenting, the father’s role, breastfeeding, how to make a birth wish list, nighttime parenting, the family bed, vaccinations, and more. I love the Internet resources in the back. This is the perfect book for pregnant moms who are interested in exploring natural birth. If you are having a conveyor belt birth, don’t bother with the book.

I give it 4 1/2 stars. That’s for a few reasons. These are nitty-gritty reasons, here’s where my inner nerd comes out. First, the huge size of the book. It’s a hefty size which makes it hard to tuck into a purse for snatches of reading for busy moms on the go, especially first time moms who are likely working at jobs outside the home. I just wish it somehow could be a trimmer size. Second, there’s one little thing about breastfeeding I disagree with. It says to nurse for fifteen minutes on each side to build up hindmilk. La Leche League International actually recommends nursing on a side as long as the baby either falls asleep or comes off on her own. For most moms, 15 minutes on a side is probably not long enough to build up hindmilk. For some moms like me who tend to have overactive milk-ejection reflex (OAMER), nursing 15 minutes on a side is a recipe for disaster. That increases the speed of the milk ejection and makes it harder for the baby to cope with the flow, making the baby gassy, burpy, and fussy at the breast.

Third, I wish it had more information on nutrition. I like that it recommends fat, but it doesn’t distinguish between the bad, hydrogenated, factory made fat and good, saturated fat found in nature. I like that it recommends eating whole grains and even soaking grains but it doesn’t say what to soak the grains in. I like that it encourages the eating of meat to supply iron and other minerals, along with vitamins. I wish it went into more about the risks of continued childbearing on a vegetarian or vegan diet. (Hey, I was vegan and had a baby on a vegan diet so I know it’s possible, but to continue to have babies on a vegan diet is not completely healthful. Succeeding babies are not as robust.) I also wish that it mentioned the crucial importance of magnesium, especially in alleviating morning sickness, alongside the mention of calcium, potassium, iron and sodium. I like that it refers to the importance of eating enough protein, at least 80 grams a day, but also wish it mentioned the importance of eating bone broth during pregnancy as source of easily assimilated nutrients. I wish that it referred to the work of Dr. Weston Price and the Weston Price foundation which every childbearing mom needs to know about, with its recommended diet for pregnant and nursing moms. I wish it had emphasized the importance of this diet on both the health and beauty for mom and baby, as well as ease of pregnancy and delivery and prevention of postpartum blues, with a link to WAPF baby photo gallery as evidence. But the author probably didn’t know about these resources, just like I didn’t know about the possibility of joyful natural birth when I was first pregnant. And inclusion of what I just recommended would have made the book bigger, when I just said I wanted it smaller. Hmmm, maybe a revision with my recommendations in a Kindle version would solve the problem. For a complete book on just pregnancy and nutrition, that fits what I am talking about, go here.

To get this great book for you or someone you know who is pregnant, go here.

You can use the coupon code “treeoflifemom” to get a 20% discount.

In this presentation, you will learn how you can blast through mindsets that are limiting your birth business and replace them with a mindset that will foster prosperity.

 Stephanie Dawn, Sacred Birth Visionary and Mentor

Most midwives, doulas and birth arts practitioners love what they do, but are frustrated to be functioning in an old paradigm of birth or ‘birth hell’ that doesn’t value what they do. Add to that feeling burnt out and earning less than they are worth and it’s no wonder many leave the profession. They just don’t have the training and skills to navigate this negative birth landscape, honor themselves, honor their clients and manifest ‘birth heaven’.

Once they learn the powerful spiritual tools, the excellent self-care philosophy and practical business concepts, ideas and proven techniques they are better able to navigate the birth world in a way that they can create satisfying, purposeful and prosperous lives.

 

You will learn:

• The #1 thing a new doula should never do

• How to foster the mindset of the ‘birthpreneur’

• How to talk to clients about money with ease

 

About Stephanie Dawn:

Sacred Birth Visionary and Mentor, Stephanie Dawn is a thought leader for the creation of a new paradigm of birth. She is the founder of Sacred Birth Work and the Sacred Birth Mentor Program, which focuses on spiritual principles, personal responsibility, excellent self-care and financial and business know-how and wellness.

When she started out, she had a passionate hobby and dreamed of a new world for women, babies and families. Fortunately, she figured out how to take her passion to restore the sanctity of birth online and reach birthpreneurs internationally, supporting them to transform their lives, earning more than they ever thought possible, all while serving their clients doing what they love.

 

What People Say:

“As a Nurse Midwifery Student, I found the Sacred Birth Mentor Program to be deeply grounding at a time when the demands on my time and mental energy have never been higher. The practices and principles shared by Stephanie have helped me craft a more specific vision for my future expression not only as a midwife, but also as a wellrounded, self-loving human being.”

Erin Graham, Atlanta, Georgia

“Stephanie helped me to create quantum leaps for the growth of my business. She gracefully combines practical business advice with timeless spiritual principles.”

Carolyn Vasquez, Birth Doula, New Jersey

“Stephanie gives you the tools you need to succeed. There were more “ah-ha” moments during this program than in the majority of my adult life.”

Alyssa Fritts, Doula and Prenatal/Postpartum Chef Jacksonville, NC

It’s time to learn about healthful foods for summertime picnics, barbecues, camping and hiking! Would you like to learn how to make delicious marinades and salad dressings out of whole foods and essential oils? Would you even like to learn recipes for lacto-fermented condiments that increase your health? We’re talking about those staples for summer cookouts: mayo, mustard, and ketchup, without the artificial colors, hydorgenated oils, or high-fructose corn syrup. How about grain free trail mix? Spearmint lemonade? What about homemade soda? My friends Lynda and Tara and I will share our recipes, based on combining Nourishing Traditions philosophy with essential oils at our:

Naturally Healthy Cooking Class with Whole Foods and Essential Oils

Saturday June 29th 10 AM

Tara Kinser’s home in Clinton UT

Please call 801-628-8753 to RSVP and get address

Recipe handouts and food to sample!

I just got wind of this, otherwise I would have spread the word sooner. Today’s the last day! It’s a bundle of more than 35 books about increasing fertility, natural childbirth, breastfeeding, whole foods eating, elimination communication, herbs, and natural baby care. I think you will like it, click here to buy.