“To really touch something, she is learning–the bark of a sycamore in the gardens; a pinned stag beetle in the Department of Entymology; the exquisitely polished interior of a scallop shell in Dr. Geffard’s workshop–is to love it.”
— from Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See
12 comments
Wow! I Love it!
How do you choose your commonplace books? Do you limit yourself to one at a time? Or a few at a time? Read the whole thing? Or parts?
Hi celesta,
Thanks for sharing. Hope everything is going well with the newborn!
Just a little request….a while ago I read somewhere on your blog something you wrote about the 'will' of a child, saying something like: a child we call strong willed is usually anything but. I have been reflecting on this very much these last few weeks and was wondering if you had some time, you could elaborate a little on that, or point me in the direction of more thoughts on that vein? Many thanks. God bless, Antonia (England)
Hi Antonia, have you seen this free ebook by Sonya Shafer – https://simplycharlottemason.com/store/the-way-of-the-will/ – it provides a good discussion of that idea. There is also a blog series that she wrote that starts here: https://simplycharlottemason.com/blog/the-way-of-the-will-part-1/. it is such a powerful and paradigm sifting idea and is well worth considering deeply.
Great quote, Celeste! It makes me want to do a field trip to the entomology department museum at UC Davis. 🙂
Right? And I wish I had not taken the Davis Arboretum for granted while I was there either! 🙂
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Thank you so much Amber; no, I hadn't come across either of those resources. many many thanks!
No kidding! I certainly spent time there, reading in the spring, taking the occasional walk or bike ride, but I never paid much attention to the diversity of the plants, much less took the time to try to learn any of their names.
"If I cast into one side of the balance all that I have learned from the books of the library and into the other everything that I have gleaned from the 'books in the running brooks,' how surely would the latter turn the scales."
"King Solomon's Ring" by Konrad Lorenz page 18
Read this morning, and immediately thought of this post 🙂 I'm actually starting my first official Commonplace book with this book (I have a Bible one I started, but don't often use, years ago, before I'd ever heard of CM).
I have a few commonplace books going so that I can keep my reading somewhat organized by genre. I write more about it here:
http://joyouslessons.blogspot.com/2015/02/organizing-my-commonplace.html
Hope that helps!
Hi Antonia! I'm glad Amber shared those links with you because they are great explanations of this topic. I have been reading through Brandy's "Start Here" study guide on CM's 20 Principles, and the topic of authority and docility (covered in several of her volumes) comes up quite often and has been really life-changing for me. How to encourage docility in our kids, and what kind of docility is appropriate, how to model docility in our own lives, how to use right authority, what that entails, etc. It's all very much tied with the will and how to train our will to act rightly through habit and through inspiring ideas. This concept of strong-willed vs weak-willed is so counter-cultural and I so appreciate the distinction CM makes! If you need more on the topic than the SCM posts, let me know and I will dig some up! 🙂
Well you know that means you need to share your new commonplace with the Keeping Company link-up somehow, right? You either need to join Instagram or you need a blog! 😉