three little puppies...

I've been installing new equipment in the Clear Spring School wood shop and arranging the tools we already had to be of better service in the coming school year. This next year promises to be a doozie. We do not know whether we'll be able to have face to face classes, as that will depend on the success in removing the threat that Covid-19 presents to our families and community. Of course there's a need to have kids in school. And yes, there's a great need to keep our families safe.

I am preparing for the possibility that some at-home learning will have to be part of the new school year. The new planer and dust collector will help us to be ready to prepare take home kits for student learning.

I have been awakening in the middle of the night, thinking about the new book. If only I was able to be as poetic in the day, as the words that come in the night! Is there a higher consciousness to which we are attached when we are at the edge of sleep? I suspect so. At least when I awaken I'm able to dredge forward a few thoughts from a deeper state.

I'm proposing a slight adjustment of the title of the book. "Wisdom of Our Hands: Crafting self, family, community and human culture" feels a bit too cold and academic. To make it more personal, as if someone might take the book as a personal action plan (as is my hope), my slight change is as follows: "Wisdom of Our Hands: A guide to crafting self, family, community and human culture." It may be longer, but it implies that action may result, and as our world comes apart, to hell in a hand basket, we'll need a guide that restores the most powerful aspect of our humanity. The thoughtful relationship between head and hands in empathetic service to each other.

My wife is using this bit of time during the Covid-19 crisis to arrange photos from our lives into scrap books and she noted how many photos there are of my daughter Lucy and I in which she's in my lap and I'm reading to her. What joyous memories! I'm reminded of a story I used to tell from my own mind that Lucy requested over and over again, about the "three little puppies." I never told that story twice the same, and perhaps that will become my project when the "Wisdom of our hands" is complete and off to Linden Press for editing and publication.

Make, fix, and create.