About the Tao Journal

All my life I've been interested in understanding truth. I grew up with horses so I spent a lot of time riding in the fields and woods of Virginia having conversations with God about it. My family spent every summer at the beach and there I felt even more connected to nature, animals and everything that lives on the earth and in the sea, and the wonder of it kept me searching. The Tao Te Ching is the first thing I've ever read that seemed to completely and perfectly articulate what I've known and observed in life, in nature, in my childhood on horseback and in the sea.

The Tao Te Ching was written over 2500 years ago, imagine that! The Tao shows us how to live joyfully, consciously connected to everything the universe reveals to us. It gives us wisdom to move toward an ideal world with no war, full of love and harmony. It also recognizes that this is not an ideal world and so helps us to "live like water", constantly adjusting to the requirements of our outer reality, while maintaining our unchangeable essence ... our true nature. The Tao Journal is not about the religious Tao (Tao-chiao) it's about the philosophical Tao, it's an observation, it's about wisdom, it's encouragement, it's beautiful. The Tao Journal is and exploration of the universal wisdom of the Tao.

About the Tao for Kids

I was told, when I was younger, that "Wisdom is caught not taught". I remember that really bothered me. It seemed on the surface to be true. I mean the best way to learn anything is to do it, as apposed to just hearing it. But I was a young mother teaching my two sons all kinds of things and I could not see why I was not  supposed to teach them wisdom? Needless to say, I didn't listen to that old saying, I DID teach them wisdom and I knew they would "catch" the true meanings of the things I was telling them as their lives progressed. 

Michael and I proceeded to give our sons words and stories and pictures of wise thoughts and actions, of wise responses to life, and we knew that life would supply plenty of opportunities for them to practice. We agreed that it was vital for us to live what we taught ... how could we teach one thing and live another and expect your children, or anyone, to believe what we're telling them was true. 

Something else I was told when I was younger is that the best way to teach a person to identify a counterfeit dollar bill is not to show them all the different types of fake money. The best way to teach someone to expertly identify the counterfeit bill is to show them over and over and over the real bills. To study the true dollar bill so that when they see a fake they will recognize it right away. I believe this applies to learning the truths in life. Teach your children what is true and what is not will stick out like a sore thumb.

The Tao for Kids section is our attempt to put the wisdom of the Tao into a understandable form for kids. I like to leave questions at the end of each post to help start the conversation. The questions I propose will not have answers included. Each parent .. each of you .. need to guide your child the way you choose. Your children may have different answers than you do, in fact I can almost guarantee that, learn from them. Enjoy!