Women’s Work

  
  
  
The making of butter

The daily duties are clearly divided around here between Berber men and women. Both have a lot to do during summer time and the days follow a certain rhythm. There is no weekend and no vacation time and especially women work hard every day, from morning until evening: looking after the house and animals, washing the laundry by hand, baking bread, making food, caring for the kids and getting grass from the fields…. Busy body workout, day in, day out – no sport studio needed and often an aching back in the evening… it’s sometimes very harsh, but it also is a blessed work – archaic, pure and by hand, without stress, in breathtaking beautiful nature and according to Allah’s will, to weather and seasons. Subhanallah, it is a rough life, but such a peaceful, frugal and simple one, soul filling and of ordinary beauty, directly connected to God’s creation, alhamdulillah.

  
  
Getting grass for the domestic animals

Summer Bliss #1

  

…enjoying… the early morning sun falling into the windows – running barefoot – celebrating light and summer solstice – sandwiches and fresh salad – sweet orange juice – flowers from the fields – … being thankful for the blessing of a new summer… alhamdulillah… 
Jumuah moubarak!

  
 

Green Pee(s)

  

Living a greener life means also to reduce trash. And this in itself is a very specific problem in Morocco and especially out here in the mountains. We neither have refuse collection service, garbage trucks, nor any common refuse tips. Trash either goes behind the next hill or is burnt with a little fire by the producer himself. Hmm, not a very healthy thing to do…
The arrival of modern life products such as plastic bags (black Moroccan mikkas), wrapped sweets and drinks leads to an increasing number of garbage. Whereas before people grew all their food locally or made it at home, they buy now biscuits, yoghurt and other plastic stuff and produce a lot more trash than ever before, mashaallah. The lack of consciousness and education makes it worse: people throw plastic papers just right away wherever they are and no one cares. Little by little the beautiful green nature fills up with black mikkas and colourful trash.

But subhanallah, there are some movements and few people begin to think and to change. Little environmental-care education programs are held in schools and villages and in smalls steps a change towards the better can be recognized.

My family strongly supports such programmes. And I am always on the try to recycle, repurpose and reduce our personal garbage.
One great thing I recently found on the internet is cloth toilet paper.
We are already using cloth diapers, but I never thought about cloth wipes… until I saw a blog post that led me there. What a simple logical great inspiration! Alhamdulillah.
 
I immediately took old out-worn towels and cut them into rectangles (approx. 15 x 8 cm). In total I made about 70 pieces; and maybe, when I find time, I will machine-trim the edges with a zigzag stitch…

But for now I put them in a nice little basket and brought them into the bathroom where they are used for one’s little businesses (the normal toilet paper is used only for bigger business)…
Alhamdulillah, it feels so much better to wipe with real cotton – there’s usually only one cloth piece needed and no torn up paper roll and sticky crumbled little paper pieces any more… We produce much less refuse now, my weekly cloth diaper washing machine is loaded fully since and it feels so good to do good, doesn’t it?
Subhanallah, I am off to make some cloth tissues (handkerchiefs) out of old sheets, inchaallah….

Happy green first summer week!

..s..l..o….w….

Salaam alaikoum out there!
We had some computer problems with viruses, mashaallah.
Internet per satellite goes always slow, but now things are going even slower and are still in repair.
So, just a quick “salaam” today and some lovely links I recently discovered.

Rainbowy Waldforf inspired parenting. 
Arctic Motherhood.
Meaningful thoughts of a lovely sister.

Review: How to talk…

“I was a wonderful parent before I had children. I was an expert on why everyone else was having problems with theirs. Then I had three of my own…” (Elaine Mazlish)

  

Even here in the outermost mountains of Morocco, I challenge quiet normal parenting problems.
Being a mother is the hardest and most demanding job ever. Being loving and patient is not always easy, especially when you are having two very lively kids, a lot of housework to be done, a freelance job and a husband often working far away…
I read some books about parenting and even saw “Super Nanny” once. But I’ve never found a real helpful practical guide. I already tried different upbringing methods, and sometimes, very rarely, I was so helpless that I yelled at and even clapped my children. I hated it to do and I hated myself for becoming so angry, astafirghullah.

This morning I finished the most helpful book about parenting I’ve ever read:
“How to talk so kids will listen; and listen so kids will talk” from Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish,
Piccadilly Press, ISBN 978 1 85340 705 5.

Oh, what a great book it is! I even had tears in my eyes while reading it. It is so touching, so powerful, full of good advice and just so true!
In the essence it is all about a respectful living: being respectful towards your children and towards yourself. It shows new but very logical ways on how to solve communication problems, how to cope with negative and angry feelings, how to engage cooperation, how to use alternatives to punishment, how to praise in a favourable way and how to resolve family conflicts peacefully.
While reading this book the last weeks my view became clearer and I immediately tried to implement some of the new learned methods in our daily life. And see, it works, masha’allah!
Little by little I see changes in my behaviour and in that of my little ones. I feel as if I am able now to respect their feelings and mine much better, and I see that they understand themselves deeper, even if the feelings are about anger and frustration.
Lot of the ideas written in this book sound to me as if they were coming right out of my heart; they seem familiar and appropriate, but I’ve never found the words nor did I’ve had the knowledge to describe them so clearly. I begin to understand much more about my own struggle and I realize now that even though I am a parent myself, part of me is still the little child suffering from old wounds. BUT I also got the tools now on how to break and not to repeat the upbringing of my own childhood which was a lot about labelling and putting the child in a role.
The last weeks I learned, and still try to learn, how to completely accept my children as they are – FULLY and with all their positive AND negative feelings, with all their lovely AND difficult characteristics, with all things I like AND dislike about them. I do not want to try to make them easier to handle just because it would be easier for me.
I wish not only to be a loving mother, but also to be a guide, a rock, a mentor, a friend and a good example for them. I want to totally accept their own and unique personalities, trying to find ways how to cooperate and communicate peacefully with them, so they will always feel deeply loved and accepted as they are, incha’allah. I also learned how to set clear limits and still maintain their goodwill.
I got all these tools while reading the book and I made so many notes, I wrote down ideas for new skills and I figured out a respectful behaviour for difficult situations. In the book itself you find examples to exercise the new learned skills, you find funny cartoons and quick reminders in conclusion. That helps so much to practice the given advices and to reflect on their meaning.

I still struggle often with my old behaviour of getting loud and commanding, especially when I am tired or too busy with other stuff. But I know much better now how to deal with difficult feelings and situations and how to communicate respectfully with my children.
And even when a situation went badly I know now how to turn it towards the better afterwards, because I know now that it is never too late: “To learn a new language is not easy. For one thing you will always speak with an accent… but for your children it will be their native tongue!” (Dr. Haim Ginott)

So I pray to my Lord that He will give me the patience and power to implement these new learned skills completely into our life, that they become natural for me and normal for my children, I pray that they will become content respectful people who can benefit of and pass these skills on to further generations.
May Allah accept my best intentions for His sake and for the best for my kids. Ameen.

I wrote this article about two years ago on my old blog, but I still benefit from the book and what I wrote is still up to date. Just recently I took the book again to re-read some things. I love it and I thought you might too…

happy weekend friends!

To the Wilderness…

 
Signs of summer – the first harvest

“Flee to the Wilderness, The one within, if you can find it.”  (Utah Philips)

We are busy here, with life, thoughts and projects, alhamdulillah.
Wishing you a week full of blessings and wilderness!

(Thanks for your applications to my last post. I will contact you personally as soon as I find time, inchaallah)

Welcome to my Healing Community

Salam alaikoum friends,

First of all I think it is time to thank you all for the ever lovely comments and thoughts you always leave here. And even though I rarely find the time to respond to them, they mean a lot to me, Barak Allahu feek!

You accompanied me here now for a while and if you read through some of my last posts, I think it is obvious that I am on a path of personal healing and becoming whole at the moment.

There were lots of changing incidences in my life over the last years and as I grow older I see the importance now to pay more attention to my true self.

Writing, and recently also blogging, means a lot to me. And as I live a happy but sometimes a very solitary life here up in the mountains at the edge of the world, writing is my essential tool to process my thoughts and thinking.
Although I am surrounded by lovely and supportive people, alhamdulillah, I sometimes feel the need to discuss ideas and meet with women who are on the same way.
In this concern internet is a blessing. Surely it cannot replace real friends and an eye to eye conversation, but it’s a great means to connect with others.
But since this blog here is a very public place and mostly focused on Moroccan life, on every-day-beauty, family and living the faith, I decided to create a second blog on a private basis and dedicated only to my personal healing process.

 

I would like to invite you to follow me and to build up something like an online-women-self-help-group. My wish is to bring into being a community of like-minded-women to meet and support each other on the journey to heal from old pain and past trauma, to share healing resources and ways on how to connect to the inner child and how to become whole again, inchaallah. That’s why I call this project “the healing community”.

No matter what your past was about, if you also are a seeker or believer, a survivor, a courageous, strong woman, who is in need for exchange but has no possibility to meet with others, to go to therapy or support-groups, I invite you to join me here! – “if we share our stories we will have many telepathic companions” (as said by Sark).

Blogging is a perfect way to do so and it is a great healing tool as well, because it allows you to have your own place for your personal musings. It is like an online journal that gives you the chance to create your own thing without obligation and according to what you like to write about; it’s a chance to tell your story, to focus on what is important for you and to gift yourself with a place where you can go when you need a time out, to reflect, to gather beauty (for example through photography and poetry) and to nourish your soul. It is a place where you are the boss but still get the chance to meet others, to inspire, to get feedback, to feel that you are not alone and to be guided to other places of inspiration, if and whenever you wish so.

And because healing is such a personal and also vulnerable thing, the whole “healing community” will be like a VIP-club and I keep my new blog closed to public and do allow only invited people to read there.

So if you are interested to become member of the club you need to make some commitment.

Leave a comment here or send me an email to itto.berber(AT)gmail.com and tell me in short why you wish to join in.

Then I will send you and invitation that gives you the right to read my blog and to join the community. You will then have to create a google-web-account (if you do not already own one) and to create your own healing-blog, or at least dedicate a new “healing”-category on your existing blog, where you write from time to time about your personal healing way, where you share your story and experience with others.

Wanna join me? – I am looking forward to meet you there! Masalama!

(Note: This blog will be continued as before twice a week with news about meaningful motherhood in Morocco, inchaallah)