Testing The Water

For ongoing conference details and registration information, please visit their website:  www.rethinkingeverything.net

Testing The Water 

1. OK - I have read, watched and talked to friends about all this. Why should I come to one of your events? What will I experience, discover and learn? How will I, my children and even my reluctant spouse benefit?

You will experience a total immersion into the rich and varied lives of unschoolers as just one among hundreds of participants from across the planet when you attend a Rethinking Education conference. Virtually everyone spends all 5 days in the hotel, sharing space, diverse lives, unschooling approaches, trials and joys of life with children/teens. You will gain enough food for thought to last years, enough inspiration to keep you motivated for months to come. 

Fresh ways of thinking, doing and living abound. Kids and teens will share inspired safe space with hundreds of others who unschool. You will make friends and acquaintances that will last forever. We will offer over 100 sessions and activities on not just unschooling topics, but alternative health care, parenting, sustainable living, rethinking work and entrepreneuring, music, dance, art and lots of fun. Many families who attend do so every year and our teen/young adult attendance is huge. In 2009 we will create for the first time a space we are calling "One Big Apartment" just for them and available around the clock.

I don't believe in coercing anyone to do anything, but I do believe in dragging a recalcitrant spouse to attend if necessary! One of the most joyful things that occurs every year is watching a skeptical spouse go from reluctance to understanding and allowance. Some of the conference's most vociferous proponents today are former skeptical spouses. They even lead discussion groups for other skeptics.

2. What does a typical day look like?

A typical day at the Rethinking Education conference will begin for some with early morning yoga, exercise in the spa, a walk outside or an impromptu meeting with new and old friends. Official programming begins at 10 am with a variety of sessions to choose from at any given time and runs all day until at least 11 pm, with many kids, teens and adults using the hotel space much later, some even all night. 

Our fully supervised Kid Village space will care for your 1-6 year children and you can guarantee that they will love it: when they ask to see mom or dad one of our volunteers will call your cell phone to let you know. We have many nursing moms in attendance and they, along with kids of any age, are welcome in all the adult sessions. Many kids have free reign of the hotel and connect with parents via cell phone or walkie-talkie, just immersed in play, art activities, dance, movies, swimming, and all sorts of special events we create just for them.

We host a famous and popular Talent Show on our last night, with a full range of no talent-very talented on stage. It is great fun with huge applause for each person. A Family Vendor Fair is held one evening for a few hours to spotlight all of our unschool families who entrepreneur. This year for the first time we will also host a special 'Kids Bazaar" just for kids aged  up to 12 to sell handmade things. A very popular "unprom" event will take place as well just for teens and young adults. 

For the first time in 2009, we are even organizing a paintball/lazer tag outing for all who are interested. We will be inviting musicians to bring their acoustic instruments this year, as our space is very conducive to impromptu jamming with their grand piano and beautiful space. The hotel offers 3 large swimming pools, beautiful racquet ball and basket ball courts, walking trails and outdoor gathering space with waterfalls and campfires. In addition to two beautiful hotel restaurants, there are three low cost restaurants just outside the hotel doorway for variety and economy and convenience.

3. What kind of families will we meet?

Unschooling families of all shapes and sizes, races, income levels and geographic locales. Many families just beginning the process of thinking about unschooling are also in attendance with questions, conerns, fears. There are commonly a fun assortment of teachers and principals who attend as well, rethinking education and questioning their own world views.

This is a sampling of what is in store at this year's Rethinking Everything conference.  Check the conference website for full program information for kids, teens and adults!  www.rethinkingeverything.net

RE Unlimited!
Brand new this year, and not to be missed!  RE Unlimited is a full day event on the first day of our weekend together,  Friday, September 3 from 9am - 5pm.This powerful and enlightening day will have us gathered in our auditorium space as we learn from a wide-ranging host of presenters, musicians and magicians enough earth-shattering, life-changing information to last at least one lifetime.  Kid Village will be open and numerous activities will be taking place for kids all day as well.

Self-Education and the Authentic Life: A Manifesto  with Brent Cameron

Politics of Relationship with Brent Cameron
In a family, the political dynamics of our relationships deeply effect who we are and the quality of our lives. Families can get trapped in patterns of behavior that are hard to change, let alone understand. This session will introduce the 5 different political dynamics in relationships and will then illustrate how each is created and sustained by our languaging - what we say inside to ourselves, what we say directly to others and also what we don't say in words but communicate with our postures, gestures and behaviors.   A father or child who is unavailable is communicating loudly through his or her behavior, a behavior of absence. Silence speaks loudly.  This three hour session will first introduce the model then give participants an opportunity to discover language patterns that are common to each pattern. We will work to create changes and breakthroughs in your family dynamics so that you will have new tools to change negative patterns and to sustain healthy, joyful, positive patterns.

Integral Consciousness with Brent Cameron
As individuals we go through many stages of development through to maturity. This work will illustrate how our species has gone through six distinct stages of development over the known history of our humankind. Knowing the stages will allow us to get a sense of our own growth and development in relationship to those we work and live with. These stages are all in existence today in various groups that interact from culture to culture and within our own culture. Individuals move through some or many of these stages in their own lives. Our educational system is locked in a cultural stage that is transcended by families that think beyond that paradigm. Unschooling or is a shift to a different level of thinking that cannot be understood by the previous kind of thinking, in the same way that it is difficult to understand the next kind of thinking beyond the paradigm of unschooling. The workshop involves investigating the evolving collective consciousness of cultural perspectives and gives us a chance to understand the different perspectives with more clarity and understanding.

The Wisdom Strategy with Brent Cameron
Intelligence is not something that smart people have that other people do not. A thinking skill is a strategy. Good spellers do something in their way of thinking that is entirely different from people that can not spell. A poor speller can learn to copy the inner strategy of a good speller, and then using that strategy become an excellent speller. Someone who is considered wise is doing things neurologically, is thinking in strategies that are not used by most people. We all have several good strategies to approach life with, yet if we learn all the strategies that are used by wise people then we can become more wise in our own lives. Wisdom is a strategy worth learning and applying to our lives. Wisdom is a combination of qualities, perspectives or world views and strategies. It is possible to deconstruct then to construct a wisdom strategy. This strategy can then be practiced so that a person develops the habit of considering important decisions using the strategies of wise thinkers. Children can be introduced to these strategies and once you learn how to recognize strategies you can build many of your own processes.

Self-Actualization with Brent Cameron
In the mid 1900's Abraham Maslow began using psychology to look at the positive things that are true about human beings rather than just the things that go wrong. Psychology was and is largely is the study of pathologies of the mind. However, Maslow invented positive or humanistic psychology in his study of human wellness. As part of his research he noticed that people matured towards quality states and in his study of well and highly evolved people he noticed common characteristics. This session will investigate the qualities of a self-actualized person which he so profoundly documented and we'll discuss and discover ways of bringing those qualities and characteristics into our own lives. Modeling will be one technique to learn new strategies associated with the qualities or states of a self-actualized person.

Thank goodness I was never sent to school;
it would have rubbed off some of the originality.
Beatrix Potter

Parent's Tao - Ancient Wisdom for Modern Parents  with William Martin
We'll explore the classic wisdom of Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching as it applies to the joys and concerns of today's parents.  William Martin will guide an in-depth experience of the themes from his best-selling book, The Parent's Tao Te Ching.  Parenting does not have to be a struggle or a battle of wills.  Together we will discover and practice ways of expressing contentment, power, and happiness as we live the wonder of "ordinary life" with our children.  We will find the True Nature of both ourselves and our children as we dive beneath the superficial world of ego structure and personality.
William will guide us in exercises and discussions and will include classic Taoist themes as they apply to our life with children, including

The Map is Not the Territory ... 
... Living Life Directly ...
... Labels are not Reality ...
... Relax Your Grip  ...
... Live at The Still Point  ...
... Empty Yourself to be Full  ...
... Opposites are Necessary  ...
... Your Greatest Legacy  ...
... Natural Spirituality ...
... Self-Acceptance ...
and  The Danger of Rules

Our group experience itself will embody Taoist thought - a combination of presentation and discussion that will be flowing, effortless, flexible, and natural - allowing room for everything that may arise in us as we explore our own life as parents with mindfulness and awareness.

"You can control your children through threats and punishments
and they will learn to fear.  You can control their behavior by praise and reward
and they will learn to look outside themselves for approval and for worth.
You can watch their every movement, every action, and every decision making sure
they 'do it right' and they will learn to always doubt themselves. 
Or you can love and guide without controlling or interfering
and they will learn to trust themselves."

Couple's Tao - Ancient Wisdom for Modern Couples  with William Martin
Based on his book,  The Couple's Tao Te Ching, William Martin will lead an exploration, discussion, and re-interpretation of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching - one of the world's oldest and most widely read books of wisdom - expressly for couples.  You  will capture the ancient spirit of Lao Tzu's wisdom as it speaks directly to modern lovers - and to the full sweep of their experiences and emotions.  A deeply felt alternative to so many relationship workshops that urge readers to manipulate their partners rather than to accept, cherish, and delight in them, The Couple's Tao  will explore classic Taoist themes such as

Passion is not Tamed by Words ...
... The Gift of Self ...
... No Need to Strive ...
... The Healing Nature of Conflict  ...
... A Field of Dreams ...
and  The Cosmos is in Those Eyes

We will discover the True Nature of both ourselves and our partner waiting beneath the superficial masks of ego and personality. It is here will find our relationship, our connection, and our delight.
The class experience itself will embody Taoist thought - a combination of presentation and discussion that will be flowing, effortless, flexible, and natural - allowing room for the unique qualities of each relationship to emerge, surprise, delight and enlighten our life together.

"Working out the details of daily life together is a proper function of the mind.
But your real experience of each other is a product of your senses.
It is as tangible as a kiss.
You must be able to taste your love as you would taste a ripe strawberry."

Spontaneous Evolution: A Universal Love Story with Steve Bhaerman
At a time when our world faces multiple crises, here is some good news:  We are on the threshold of evolving into a new super-organism called Humanity.  Author, humorist and practical philosopher Steve Bhaerman offers an inspiring presentation based on the book Deepak Chopra has called “world-changing”:  Spontaneous Evolution:  Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here, co-authored with noted cellular biologist Bruce Lipton.  Combining Bruce’s work as a biological scientist, and Steve’s background as a political scientist, his talk is an invitation to participate in the greatest adventure in human history – conscious evolution!  (Get the book!  Read the book!  It's also available on CD audio!)

Building the Heartland Community: Evolving Spontaneous Evolution From Ideal to Real Deal with Steve Bhaerman
Spontaneous Evolution co-author hosts this RE event designed to activate the two characteristics of evolution:  awareness and community.  The first segment of this event is about expanding awareness, as Steve offers a powerful presentation on how the principles of Spontaneous Evolution are already being put into action.  The second segment is about building community, as participants break into groups of four to “tell a vision” for themselves, their community and their world.  In the final hour, these visions are shared, as the whole group chooses to empower one or more of these visions with their ongoing participation.

This is the perfect event to bring together the entire “cultural creative” RE community, where activists, parents, young people, businesspeople, healers - everyone! - can gather under one big “intent”:  to regrow the Garden, and have a heaven of a time doing it.

On Freedom & Justice: An Insider's Critical Look with S. Rafe Foreman
Do you ever wonder, "What are my rights?  Who determines my rights? Where do they get their power?"  Do you ever say to yourself, " I feel like a troll on an endless chain of rules, regulations, laws and requirements that never seem to end?"  Have you ever wondered, "Where do these laws come from and why do they exist? Who makes the rules and why? Why are we obligated to follow the rules that someone else sets for us? What if the rules or laws are against our personal beliefs, health, welfare or freedom? Do we have to follow these rules to our own personal detriment?"

If you have asked yourself any of these questions or related questions, you are NOT alone! I am as frustrated and angry as you are.  I will share why those who create the law use it for their advantage and often to your disadvantage. I am a "lawyer-hating" lawyer and will explore some of these topics and others - but I want your help.  You bring your legal questions, quandaries, issues and cases to our session.  It will be a group effort and I will group them by themes to address each topic. We will explore in real-time the answers to these questions I've posed as well as your own, as this program is dynamic and one of a kind. We will not explore your concerns in some esoteric and theoretic manner, but rather in context of real world application and in real time for global understanding by everyone.

Barb Lundgren sought me out to offer this rare inside view of our legal and justice system and how it really works.  Please consider reading Gerry Spence's   Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom: An Owner's Manual for Life    or his Give Me Liberty: Freeing Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century  and/or  Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power: The Rise and Risks of the New Conservative Hate Culture    before coming to RE this year.  Your life will never be the same after reading Gerry.

Rafe is on staff as an instructor at  Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyer's College  and on their Board of Directors.

Once in awhile it really hits people that they don't have
to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
Alan Keightley

The Power of Partnership  with Scott Noelle
Conventional parenting and education are essentially domination systems that reflect our culture's mindset of scarcity, competition, control, and deep-seated mistrust of human nature. Superficial reforms can make these and other domination systems seem tolerable, but truly living up to our potential requires a radical shift in consciousness: out of the dominator mindset and into a mindset of partnership. In this session we'll discuss the principles and practice of partnership, and how to access the power and pleasure of partnership in every branch of life -- not only parenting and education, but also work, play, health, relationships, and spirituality. It's ALL about partnership!

Transforming Anger with Scott Noelle
Why do people who value nonviolence, compassion, forgiveness, and unconditional love often find themselves seething with anger or even lashing out at their loved ones? In this interactive workshop, we'll create a safe space to explore that question, and we'll practice the art of transforming anger into a force for good.

WTF is LOA? with Scott Noelle
If you're a critical thinker, and the popular notion of a "Law of Attraction" (LOA) ruffles the feathers of your inner skeptic, then this session is for you! I will dispel the common misconceptions that have prevented otherwise leading-edge thinkers from appreciating and benefiting from a deeper understanding of this universal principle.

Liberation Parenting: Breaking free of the Paradigm of Control and Domination  with Teresa Brett
Our socialization from birth has reinforced the false belief that children are not worthy of our full respect and trust, but must be controlled and dominated in order to grow into productive and contributing members of our society.  This 4 hour immersion session will dissect how the cycle of socialization has operated to maintain this paradigm of domination and control. We will look at how we can break free and create new ways of being in relationships with children. Using the ideas from Paulo Freire’s work in liberatory education and the process of dialogue, we will examine together the ways we can leave behind our early socialization and embrace liberation parenting.

We'll tackle the triggers and stressors that cause us to fall back into the control and domination paradigm,  the practices that help us learn from past behaviors and initiate ways we can break free of the traditional socialization process.   

My Son, the Horse Boy with Rupert Isaacson
Join Rupert as he shares the magic and mystery of autism and his exploration into its treatment.  When Rupert's son Rowan was diagnosed with autism as a young boy, he and his psychologist wife chose to abandon all customary protocol and seek help from shamans, healers, ceremonies and trance - in Mongolia.  Profoundly transformed by their experience, Rupert produced a documentary of their experience.   Making annual return trips to Mongolia, Rupert now reports that Rowan is a bright, happy boy, free of the outward manifestations of autism.

Film: Horse Boy with Rupert Isaacson
explores Rupert and his family’s unforgettable journey as they travel halfway across the world in search of a miracle to heal their autistic son. This sweeping and emotionally charged story embodies the openness and faith the Isaacson family places in the possibility of trying something extraordinary. Rowan was born in 2001, seven years after his parents met while touring India. His father, Rupert, a British journalist and human-rights activist, and his mother, Kristin, a psychology professor from suburban California, felt the world was their oyster. After their son was diagnosed with autism in 2004, their perfect life began to fall apart. They tried conventional therapies, diets, and medication, all to no avail. Rupert had witnessed the potency of traditional healing and discovered that his son had a special bond with horses. He researched and found a place that combined horseback riding and shamanic healing—Mongolia. The next step was convincing his wife they should take their son to Ulaanbaatar and travel on horseback, searching for the elusive reindeer herders and the most powerful shaman in the country. Accompanied by Rupert's honest narration, this rich film blends footage from the family's adventure through the Mongolian countryside with scenes from their life at home in Texas. Bolstered by testimony from autism experts, including Dr. Temple Grandin, this compelling film exquisitely captures an astonishing physical and spiritual journey.

Our Genetic Blueprint: Leaderless, Harmonious & Empowered
with Rupert Isaacson
Rupert shares his lifetime passion, research and wisdom, all culminating from his boyhood in South Africa, his extensive travels with indigenous tribal peoples and his love of research, thinking and rethinking.  He will offer up much food for thought on the true nature of man, including child and adolescent development and rites of passage, living harmoniously without any need for control, creating environments whereby each person is empowered to get their needs met and support each other in theirs.  You will never see the world the same way after meeting Rupert and opening yourself up to just a fraction of what he has to impart.

Education is like pruning; it wrecks the natural growth of the tree
in favor of a form that is useful to commercial society.
Tom Hodgkinson

Rethink Everything You Know about Disease, Dysfunction & Maximum Wellness
with Raymond Francis
Scientist Raymond Francis teaches you how to prevent and reverse almost any disease.  Health in one lesson – Raymond presents a revolutionary new understanding of health and disease that cuts through the confusion, demystifies disease and gives you answers to these questions:   What is health? What is disease? Why do people get sick? How can disease be prevented? How can it be reversed?  Learn how to create health and prevent and reverse almost all disease.  It is an approach that is easy to understand, yet so powerful that you may, indeed, never have to be sick again.

How to Have a Healthy Child with Raymond Francis
America’s children are among the sickest in the industrialized world.  More than one out of three children is overweight.  Diabetes, asthma, brain dysfunctions and cancer are epidemic in our young people.  Medical experts are predicting that life expectancy in America is about to turn down because our children are so sick – they will not live as long as their parents and grandparents.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  We know how to prevent and reverse these problems.  Scientist Raymond Francis will explain how to get and keep your children healthy without the use of vaccines, antibiotics and other drugs. 

Never Be Sick Again with Raymond Francis
Scientist Raymond Francis presents an island of clarity in a sea of confusion, taking the mystery out of disease.  Health is not a game of chance.  It is a choice and Raymond teaches you how to choose it.  He will provide you with the tools to get well, stay well, and never be sick again. He will explain cutting edge molecular biology and cellular biochemistry in simple language that even a child can understand.  The knowledge to end our epidemic of chronic disease already exists.  All we have to do is put it to use.

Finding the Heart of what Works for You and Your Family with Sarah Parent
Living consensually – a lifestyle in which all family members are equally valued and respected – is exhilarating, empowering, and… challenging.  Unschooling is based on a foundation of trust that each child knows everything they need at any given time which, in theory, is brilliant and, in practice, can be downright terrifying.   How can we stay the peaceful, trusting course when family, friends, society, and our own inner voice place seeds of doubt or wage all out war on our decisions and practices?  

This session will be devoted to the construction of individual Guiding Principles that will form the unshakable foundation of your vision for your family and children.  Sarah will use meditation, imagery, and supportive discussion to    help each attendee extract their core principles and use them to form vision statements to maintain alignment between goals, dreams and daily interactions.

Enlightenment is not a process of learning,
it is a process of unlearning.
Dr. Kat Domingo

Punitive Parenting, Overt and Covert  with Krenie, Maria & Isaac Stowe
Well ‘informed’ parents know by now that corporal punishment, threats and intimidation are not the tickets to emotionally healthy kids. But after 20 years practicing pediatrics, I can say without equivocation that most  parents/caregivers, informed, enlightened and otherwise,  are still embroiled in punitive parenting practices on a daily basis. Behaviorism and other covert forms of punitive parenting such as rewards schemes, “withdrawing privileges” and so-called "consequences for actions," are promoted by mental health and medical professionals.  And many parents, in their quest for control, eat these suggestions up.  This workshop will consider a radically anti-ageist approach to parenting as it examines the deep roots of punishment culturally, psychologically, personally. 

Anybody who's ever mattered,
anybody who's ever been happy,
who's ever given any gift into the world
has been a divinely selfish soul, living for his own best interest.
No exceptions.
Richard Bach

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) with Dr. Joseph DuChene
Let's learn  how to do EFT.  The goal of this session is to learn the basics of EFT. We will go over the simplified procedure that should be easy for you to memorize by the end of the session.   Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is an emotional, needle free version of acupuncture that is based on new discoveries  regarding the connection between your body's subtle energies, your emotions, and your health. EFT has been reported  successful in thousands of cases covering a huge range of emotional, health and performance issues. It often works where  nothing else will.  Best of all, anyone can learn and use EFT and you don't need specialized schooling for it. We will teach the basic tapping procedure and provide a worksheet format that you can use on any problem or goal you would like to achieve. This class is a must for beginners and a great starting point for all the break out sessions. For more info on EFT,    click here.
 
EFT Break-out sessions:
 
Law of attraction and EFT: How to hit the mark
There are many energies, emotions, and subconscious tapes that alter your ability to hit the mark when it comes to attracting what you want. One of the best ways to attract things into your life is to identify and remove these hidden subconscious tapes that you may not realize are there. Learn how the different kinds of interference can be overcome by using EFT.  We will go over the attraction process starting with you. How are you going to attract anything if your emotions are sabotaging the process? How do you know if this is happening? What am I doing to do about it? Learn how to move through the attraction process using EFT,  eliminating any interference that can slow or stop the attraction process.
 
EFT for overcoming illness: Body heal thyself!
Learn specific ways to use EFT to identify hidden emotions and energies that allow many illness to persisit.  This material will provide relief for chronic illness, acute pain, phobias, and addictions. Learn the tapping points that eliminate pain fast. This is an extension of what we learned at the beginning session.  Many people have used EFT to help overcome a wide variety of health concerns. In this breakout session we will focus on a basic understanding of the disease process and how we can use EFT to reverse the disease process. We will start by learning how to tap on the symptoms you have and move into a deeper understanding of the emotions and core issues behind them.
 
EFT Triggers, Attachments and Core Issues: The advanced Stuff
Learn about the subconscious tapes that could be running your life. Learn how to identify the triggers and find out how to get to the core issues underneath them. We will be using information from Bruce Lipton, Canice Pert and other researchers that help us understand these concepts. We will also explain and have The Rice Experiment there for you to examine. This experiment will give you a real life look into how Masaru Emoto's water crystals and the implications that affect you. 

Triggers are our window into our core issues. We must first master our triggers before we can really go after our core issues. This session will focus on understanding triggers and how to recognize them and diffuse them. We will also go into what core issues are, how we get them and how to work with them using EFT.

Muscle Testing  with Dr. Joseph DuChene
Learn how to muscle test and get good information. I will be teaching several simple tests that you can do at home. Learn how to test for stressors that affect your health. Learn how to use muscle testing to find emotional or energetic problems that you can treat with EFT. Learn how to find food sensitivites and allergies with muscle testing. Learn the one simple thing that will throw off all forms of muscle testing.

The pathetic truth is that teaching children
what they need to learn for the future often becomes a program for living in the future,
and people end up living their whole lives as a rehearsal
for a time that never comes. 
We teach our children to spend their lives preparing to live instead of living.
Brad Blanton

Diagnosis Autism: Where Do We Go From Wherever We Are
Dr. Laurence A. Becker and Rhonda Spellman are authors, autism advocates and experts in the field of autism. Based on their combined 50 years of work in the field of autism they will provide their insight, inspiration and ingenuity and give the directional guidance that others depend on in order to thrive in a world that struggles to provide clarity. This program is very relevant for parents but especially for grandparents. This is not "just" a talk.  Hands-on resources (books, films, articles) will also be available. 
    - Finding Answers to the Questions you are Afraid to Ask
    - Discovering your Hidden Talents
    - Thriving instead of just Surviving
    - Inspiring Productivity Today

My Kids Don't Do Anything They Don't Want To Do with Chris Parent
And why should they?  Independent thought can only be had when one is allowed the freedom to be independent; to succeed and to fail on one's own terms; to own the experiences and information and move forward.  As a whole-life unschooling dad, my kids have the freedom to make their own decisions in life.  We do not force our kids to eat what we eat, when we eat, or go to bed at a particular time.  They decide what learning opportunities they will pursue and even what constitutes a learning opportunity.  Our family works as a unit with everyone having input to the decisions we make as a family.  When we try to plan out our days (if we try to plan out our days) we take into account what everyone wants to do with their time, not just the adults in the family.  By respecting everyone’s needs and desires, we maintain a peaceful environment at home because no one feels out of control or 'less than'.  In this session we will explore what it means to support true freedom in our children, how these dynamics work for my family, and how they can work for yours.

Detoxing Schooled Adults  facilitated by Melissa Cantrelle
Guided Process Workshop

Wish you could have grown up unschooled?  Want to be e3ven more empowering support for your kids?  Want to detoxify yourself from all that schooling and conditioning that seems to be limiting you today?

Join life coach and NLP Master, Melissa Cantrelle, for an easy and graceful journey of detoxing the negative, stuck emotions and limiting decisions that hold you back from fully being the free, empowered and empowering person you desire to be.

In this Part 1 of 2 sessions, Melissa will guide you to discover the negative emotions and limiting decisions specific to your experience3 that you desire to release now.  Then, using NLP guided visualizations, you’ll be able to completely and easily release that “stuckness” and free up your natural, innate resources to be more YOU.

If you’re new to NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), this is a great opportunity to experience its amazing benefits in a safe environment where you are always in control of your journey.  You can learn more about the origins of NLP and how Melissa uses it in this brief article on her blog: http://catalize.com/blog/archives/23

And if you’re experienced with NLP, come enjoy Melissa’s heart-driven use of time travel and hypnosis techniques to gently free your mind. 

Once you’ve detoxified your schooled conditioning, join Melissa in Part 2 of this process by exploring and integrating new supportive beliefs, attitudes and strategies for your unschooling journey at the end of the “My Unschooled View of the World” Panel discussion.

Food Self-Reliance in a Backyard or Small Farm with Marjory
Just what does it take to be able to grow all (or most) of the food your family needs?  How much time, space, and money does it takes?  Which methods have high productivity, yet need the least amount of work, fertility, or water?  How does this compare with simply wildcradting in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle?  What can you do to work with the special challenges of Texas soils and climate?  During this talk we will share what we have learned as a family that currently grows a significant amount of its own food.

If you put fleas in a shallow container they jump out.
But if you put a lid on the container for just a short time,
they hit the lid trying to escape and learn quickly not o jump so high.
They give up their quest for freedom.
After the lid is removed, the fleas remain impresoned by their own self-policing.
So it is with life.
Most of us let our own fears or the impositions of others
imprison us in a world of low expectations.
Andrew Hsu

Sacred Sex, Conscious Pregnancy & Birthing, Natural Birthing,
Conscious Baby Raising with Shylah Ray Sunshine
Shylah will cover/bring up/discuss topics concerning our youth and examine the importance of all stages such as:  sacred sexual education, natural fertility, conscious conception, healthy/mindful pregnancy, blissful birth, breastfeeding, no circing, baby-wearing/family bed, natural immunity, and more. 

Secret Lives of Spiritually Sensitive Children with Melissa Morrill
Many people agree that things are changing on our planet for our species.  More and more children seem to be born with higher levels of sensitivity and higher levels of consciousness.  Some have used the words ‘Indigo’ or ‘Crystal’ children to describe them, but despite the label, this is something we can no longer ignore as a culture.  When a child is constantly inundated with sightings of angels and spirits, families soon realize there are not a lot of places to go for answers.  Raising psychic children in the western culture turns out to be no easy task.  We will be discussing one family’s experience with a psychic child and their quest for answers along with the importance of accepting these children and their innate wisdom.

All learning can be learned as the child learns to talk,
 painlessly, successfully, and without organized instruction. 
Schools as we know them today will have no place in the future.
Seymour Papert

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4. Tell me about some of the speakers you have and why you have them.