Old black-and-white photograph of two young children crouching to examine wild flowers.
As a small child, that still exists inside me at the age of 79, I adored wild flowers. They fascinated me. I didn’t feel a need to pick them, but just was so fascinated by their endless differences in structure and colours. A lovely art teacher in my secondary school taught me how to draw them in detail. Later, I enjoyed and still do, painting flowers really freely. For a child to just be allowed to feel free, in nature, even in the back yard or local hedgerow, allows a beginning of inspiration of their own and a true connection with nature.

Children Occupying Themselves at Home

My own experience of being a child who did not find school easy, I remember back to how good I was and am still, at occupying myself.

I do not remember any teacher or parent who ever said to me as a small child, to learn through occupying myself.

I loved, so much drawing with pencils.

If there is any child in the UK who does not have a pencil, it is so important their parent, or grandparent reaches out to their child’s school to know where to go to for free pencils, coloured and not, because there are are so many pencils and rubbers etc. in each of our homes that are not being used.

For a head teacher, just putting out a message for free pencils, rubbers and pencils, they will find the drop-off point they choose, for these creative items for free, deluged with creative possibilities.

In Oxfordshire, there is a recycling organisation called Orinoco. But there are so many of us, who keep coming across creative items that we do not use. We can donate them to drop-off points chosen by head teachers.

I know, certainly, if a person, a child, teenager or adult, who sits, for just one hour a week, maybe at the kitchen table, on their own, throwing their energies, even for just one hour, so long as the hobby is chosen by them because it is something they truly love, maybe feathers they have found, stamps they have been sent on envelopes, or by friends who have some in drawers, they will get in touch with their OWN creative energies, hopes and dreams.

Simplicity is immensely powerful.

Let us all change 2021 into a most powerful step forward.

Margie McGregor

Email

margiemcgregor@gmail.com

Woodstock, Oxfordshire, UK