when the student is ready

Earlier this month Lily attended a second session of summer camp in the beautiful gardens of her nature-based nursery school. The format is gentle, open-ended and relaxed, just as I believe summer days should be for young children.

Mornings are spent playing in the gardens. Small handwork projects are available if children are interested, but only if they are interested. Ice-cream and lemonade are made from scratch. A simple play is created and rehearsed during the week and performed for parents on the last day. Many songs are sung.

Sometimes Lily participates in the various activities that are offered, but many times she chooses not to, as was the case with a weaving project the children called “jellyfish braiding.”

However, in the final moments of the camp week (I mean literally five minutes before the children sang their good-bye song), Lily took interest in the weaving that one of her teacher’s was finishing up.

And being the gentle, patient, loving Soul he is, he invited her to try it with him. And then seeing her enthusiasm, offered to let her take home the project he was working on. (For which I am very grateful, because I’m not sure I could have stopped her from weaving without some serious sadness.) 

The next day she came with me to the farmers market to help set up for the pre-market yoga class. Her weaving (now beautiful rainbow yarn that her teacher also sent her home from camp with) came with her.

And now my sweet girl weaves…in the car, at the beach, at the park… As soon as she finishes one project, she sets to work on another one.

And I am reminded of a quote that we reflected on often during my year-long yoga teacher training…

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Thank you, Todd, for being so present and for taking those extra few minutes with Lily…when she was ready to learn to weave!