I can remember sitting in a very dark romantic nightclub with my husband. We were 22 years old and had been married a year. We both had fine jobs teaching, bringing in good salaries, and had a house. The time was right for children. I had moments of "motherly currents" running through me, thinking, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a child, a rosy-cheeked baby with little flannelette nightgowns." And yet there was this other voice that came rumbling on through. While we were sitting there in this romantic little nightclub, I had an inner dialogue going on as my friends talked or danced. I sat quietly, surveying the scene in a way that surprised me, because I was not accustomed to looking at something quite that objectively when there were so many feeling currents on the move. I looked at the reasons that people have children: first, to follow a natural maternal instinct, or an animal instinct for procreation; second, to keep one's presence on Earth longer than one's own physical form would allow; third, to have a fulfilling experience and to have children around in elderly years; and last, to keep the human race going. Out of all those reasons I could not see one solid reason for me. Most of them seemed self-centered. It would fulfill me. It would satisfy me in my old age. It would satisfy my maternal instincts. And the one about keeping the human race going just didn't make sense with all the overpopulation. I am certainly not implying that all people with children are self-centered.

Also I was very aware of the climate that existed between my husband and me at that time. It was a very youthful climate, not the climate ripe for a child. It was obvious that I was not to have a child at that moment, and as a matter of fact, at that moment I knew that I would never have a child unless there was some very strong compulsion that rose above all of those reasons. Later I was divorced from my husband which gave further indication that the climate had not been right. We were very good friends but with no particular sense of the same destiny for being here on Earth. And while I couldn't have formulated what my destiny was, it simply wasn't the same as his. Over the years when there have been other opportunities to have a child, and lots of my single friends were having childen, I still could not come to any sensing in myself except to satisfy something personal. I suppose it was a much larger spiritual perspective that was given to me at 22, one that has only been confirmed over the years.

People are surprised when they hear that I give parenting workshops and yet don't have children of my own. They wonder if the parents who attend the workshops know this. Actually, the first thing I do in a workshop is to tell parents that I have no children. Initially, I was surprised that no one seemed to mind, but I have not yet met one parent who is concerned about this. Their attitude was simple: "If you know of something that will assist me with my parenting, I want to hear about it." Nevertheless, I take some time to briefly outline my background.

I've taught high school, grades nine through twelve. I usually ended up having in my class the most troubled children in the school because I recognized that I provided discipline and an experience of safety that was often lacking at home.

For two years I lived and worked with juvenile deliquents in an educational residence in which I was both mother current, father current, teacher, disciplinarian. I was in charge of the discipline on the property. I decided which children came to the school and which children left, and why. I communicated with the house parents, supporting the nurturing atmosphere that was required. At that residential school we were very aware of creating the atmosphere of home. We did this by creating it first in our own consciousness, and then by keeping the sense of sacredness in 'home' alive amongst the staff members. We were always looking at what was right in the child as opposed to what was wrong. I find that you are really doing that when you are creating the essence of home. I lived in a little house on the property, usually with the most volatile teenage girl in the school. So after my day at work, I would go home to live with a "teenage delinquent." This was certainly a parenting role in terms of the discipline.

I taught at a men's penitentiary and saw where troubled teenage boys end up if they didn't learn inner discipline. This brought a thread of reality into my teaching. I taught school on the island of Crete to both adults and young children. That allowed me to see the effects of parenting in another culture, how it really does affect the child's expression. I taught in college with adults and also teenagers who had dropped out of school and decided they wanted to come back. So this gives you a thumbnail sketch of my background.

In my parenting workshops, I introduce people to the fact that there is a creative process on the move in the universe. We simply need to become aligned with it. Then what moves through our minds is the expression of genius, the genius of unique expression. So many are unaware of the fact that there is a creative process, and that alignment with it brings joy, brings out our own unique expression, and offers a healing current into the universe. The role of parents is simply to come into alignment with the creative process. To do so requires discipline. Without the inner disci-pline, one cannot be in alignment with this creative process and will not know one's own uniqueness, or one's fulfillment or one's destiny for being on Earth. One of the reasons children resist discipline so much is that it comes from adults who don't understand why they are offering discipline. They don't know the purpose for it. They themselves don't have the understanding that discipline is required for being in alignment with that creative process. Parents often feel that if they offer too much discipline they will curb the inherent creativity of their child, stifling the child's uniqueness. I respect their concern, however, if parents approach discipline with this attitude, the children will subconsciously pick up this resistance to discipline in their parents and will mirror it back; hence, the rebellion which occurs at most ages.

To assist parents, I make certain that I enter their worlds with the utmost respect for who they are and what they are doing. So often parents have a deep sense of guilt regarding their parenting and are often accustomed to hearing all that they are not doing correctly. I write the following premise on the blackboard at the beginning of the class:
The starting point is always with what is creative: What is not creative is beside the point.

My approach to discipline relates very directly to the theme of parenting the earth. In the workshops we look at the earth of one's being: Body, mind, and heart. Can we parent our own earth? If we can't do that, we certainly can't offer anything to children or to planet earth. One way of describing what I mean by "the earth of one's being" is to look at our educational system. We extend discipline to our bodies through physical education classes, and to our minds through our academic studies. Where in schools do we teach people how to handle their emotions, their hearts? Yet it is in this last area that many people have the most trouble in their lives. This is usually what forms the basis for the news in the media, the juvenile deliquents, prisoners, and addictions of various sorts (drugs, alcohol, food, sex...).

Most people like to cling to their emotions, thinking that that is who they are. Parents, though, are quick to realize that the child in front of them who is having a temper tantrum is not displaying the truth of who he or she is in reality. The parent knows that those out-of-control emotions are simply blocking the expression of beauty from flowing forth through the earth of their child. I like the image of the sun. Children love to put a sun in their drawings. They have a natural affinity with the sun. Any troubled emotions or hardened, crystallized concepts of the mind block the flow of sunshine like clouds in the sky.

Another way I like to explain this phrase is with a drawing:

The spirit of creativity and uniqueness, the spirit of genius, will not be broken by the use of discipline. Selfish desires and aspirations may be broken, but not the creative spirit. If the inner compulsion of genius is to emerge, a child must first learn to be obedient to external discipline as offered through parents and educators. Obedience must be learned. Only then will the child be in position to grow into a teen and then adult who can be obedient to the impulse of spirit moving internally. External discipline is finite; internal, infinite.

I don't think I could give these parenting workshops if I didn't have a clear relationship with my parents. Being an only child you'd think they would say, "Why don't you come and visit, why don't you write more." I've never had any emotional blackmail put on me by them. Always it is, "If you want to come, you know we'd love to have you visit, but we aren't putting any pressure on you." I've had an uncomplicated emotional relationship with my parents over the years. I also realized that I was the one to raise myself. When I was about 7 or 8 years old I looked around and I realized that my parents were spoiling me. I was cute, sunny, the light of their lives, and I was on the way to being spoiled. They weren't doing it deliberately. I was an only child, and there was nobody else with whom they could share their love, and share the birthday parties with. It was sort of an obvious thing. I went to a one-room schoolhouse. All my friends had lots of brothers and sisters, and I really noticed the difference. I took it upon myself to not be spoiled. I made sure, for example, that I had a birthday party every other year, just like my friends who had to take turns with their brothers and sisters. Nor would I let my mother drive me to school in the mornings because I didn't want to be spoiled. I can still recall one winter morning. I refused to let my mother drive me. I plowed through gigantic snowdrifts, and even my scarf tied across my nose and mouth didn't seem to cut the biting wind. I arrived a little late that morning. I was the only child who had walked to school.

My idea of being spoiled was to have everything my own way, to not take responsibility for my life. I wrote out little charts for myself and checked off what I had done during that day. Some of the items on the chart went beyond cleaning my room and helping with dishes. I was to take time each day to look at the sky and feel how big the universe was, how vast I was because I was part of that universe.

It seems I have always been a parent. This poem by Sengai speaks eloquently:

Here is the description of a creative person expressing into the world. Here is the description of the spirit of genius in expression through body, mind and heart. This to me is parenting the Earth.

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