Days of Auld Lange Syne: 2006 Retrospective

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot and

never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

and days o' auld lange syne?"

Bar Mitzvah, January 6, 2007

Winter 2007

The New Year 2007 came in like a lion. Central New Mexico broke an all-time record for the most snow in one day, and in Sedillo, we got over five feet of the white stuff.

The end of the storm at dawn,

January 1, 2007.

We worked on Brain Engineering Exercises in order to scaffold from strengths in visual-spatial thinking to address weaknesses in auditory processing and sequential thinking.

Using photos of the Titanic sinking in the snow, we made a PowerPoint of the steps in the sinking of the Titanic.

Spring 2007

Spring came late, and was cold and windy.

But when the snow melted, the forest trail was once again a source of wonder and delight as made our daily nature walks.

In the course of our reading about homeschooling, we discovered Kamana, a wilderness awareness home-study curriculum that has become N.'s main focus of study.

Our homeschooling moved from more structured to less structured, as we evolved towards unschooling.

Summer 2007

Warmth was a long time coming, and we had snow in May,

but by the solstice, the sun was warm and we watched the grasses of the mountain meadows flower and ripen on our daily nature walks.

Unschooling became a series of field projects:

Boy Scout Camp, Laying Wood Floors, Building Stone Steps, A Trip to Illinois, and Coyote Tracks Camp in California.

Here N. stands outside the Yurt at Commonweal Gardens in Bolinas, CA, the setting for Coyote Tracks.

Fall 2007

Autumn was warm and sunny.

The Scrub Oak and Aspen decked themselves out with spectacular color, as our daily nature walks lengthened and became both observation and delight to the eye.

The forest path, so green in the wet and cool spring, became warm and full of color. Blue sky. Red earth. Leaves of shimmering gold and heartbreaking red.

Unschooling in the fall happened where projects intersected life, as we lived the month of Tishrei, the month of Holy Days and Celebrations.

Kemana work was intertwined with the celebration of Sukkot, the Festival of Booths, Season of Our Joy. Here, N. places schachk on the Sukkah, the harvest booth.

N.'s Fourteen Birthday, December 28, 2007

"And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!

And gies a hand o' thine!

And we'll tak a right gud-willie-waught,

For auld lange syne!...

And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,

For auld lange syne!"

Poem: Auld Lange Syne by Robbie Burns, after Scots-Gaelic.

"Auld lange syne" has the meaning of "days long since" or "long, long ago" or even "once upon a time." The tune is a Scots folk-melody, originally a faster, spritely dance tune.

It is traditionally sung at the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one.

Pictures all taken in 2007 by Elisheva H. Levin.