Some would say that reading “Nourishing Traditions” or Weston Prices’ Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, is like learning a new language. I would have to agree. Fermenting, enzyme-rich lacto-fermented, kombucha, animal fats, and cod liver oil: these terms are from another age and are often new to us when we stumble upon them while changing our lives.
No one has asked me, but I can’t help but comment. I have been away from this blog for a couple months or so. Caught up in every day life; a life I’m attempting to extricate myself from: the too-busy-to-breathe life that is full of purported important points and activities, but really isn’t.
Granted, it takes time and one plots to “drop out” to a large degree and “drop into” a life that is more sane, more rich and more alive than one can imagine in her present state. But, it is often too easy to buy into one’s culture and think that life that is being lived is the “real” one. Just the image of a more meaningful life makes me happy and leads me to knowing what is real.
My point is many-fold. Learning a language is an interesting adventure: it builds character and develops the personality in ways that can’t be measured. One shelves a large part of the left brain [logical] and turns the right brain [intuitive/creative] free in order to explore another world. I mentioned Fallon and Price because I believe that, although their texts are written in English, their theories are a new language and if the reader is not learning Spanish like I am, she can still relate to what I am saying because she’s just spent the last year or so re-learning how to read a cookbook and the new words therein.
In learning any new language, one methodology that is inescapable and high on the list of most academics [home schooled and otherwise] is immersion. It is how we learned our first language: we were drenched in it. No one sat us down at three and flashed flash cards at us full of vocabulary words. Instead, we pointed to a ‘ball’ and someone said to us, ‘ball.’ No one corrected us when we said “I are beautiful” because they knew we’d find out soon enough.
Images or pictures imprint on our minds. We read books at three and point. We are helped by our siblings, our parents and a friend. I have a little theory for why we drop out of learning a language [whether it be Spanish or learning a new language for living differently]. I believe that we are not helped enough. I believe we often need to be taken by the hand and given “baby steps.” The next day, too, More hand-holding. More baby-steps.
We need help. It isn’t complicated. When we don’t get it, we often go into anxiety. The anxiety then turns into frustration and then irritation. Some of us drop out and others just get angry, then drop out. Nine students dropped out of my Spanish class after the first day: if I had not had some Spanish, I would have joined them.
The instructor is good but forgot to inform us how she was going to teach. She forgot to say: “Expect learning anxiety and some frustration.” Maybe she forgot because she is a native Spanish speaker. It doesn’t matter: the fact remains that we need to be informed about how we are going to be successful.
Instruction is key to learning. I adore this site with all of its gracious instruction on-line and off-line. Without it, I would not have learned so much so quickly. The interaction with others of “like mind” is invaluable. Then there is intuition. To intuitively recognize what is healthy for us: that is what Sally Fallon is teaching us…common sense.
From everything I’ve read, immersion works. I want to learn everything I can about Price’s work along with that of Sally Fallon, Mary Enig and Thomas Cowan. I’m going to immerse myself, once again, into this site, and read all those fabulous posts that mean so much to me and my mental, physical and spiritual health. I need optimum health to learn anything.
With my slowed down, dropped out pace, I can then turn to Spanish and learn, immersing myself in the language in all the forms: music, movies, interaction and the country. I have faith that some day I will be speaking Spanish without thinking how to do so in English. And, I will give back and show someone [not tell them] how to make kefir just like I was taught.
Language…it opens the mind and creates new worlds and I, for one, breath easier.
I’m so delighted to be here and I’m glad you’re here too.
About the Author...
It has taken me years to unlearn much of what I learned about psychology and health. Suffice it to say, I believe in home schooling, the work of Price, Fallon, Enig and Cowan and one's right to be happy in one's life. My husband and I live in Sunnyvale, CA with seven fabulous cats. They teach us to take a nap when the urge strikes, to eat heartily when hungry and to stretch into the new day. La Vida es Bueno!
COMMENTS - 0 Responses