childhood

It's never to late to have a happy childhood

Black love is Black wealth and they'll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy

Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood.

"Think about your childhood for a moment. What was your favorite outdoor place to play? What was that environment like? Do your memories evoke specific sights, scents, and sounds? What did you do there? What did it look like and feel like? Did this place change along with the seasons? What sort of games did you play and what did you discover there?

"Most of us have vivid memories of our favorite childhood play environment. This was the place where we began to discover the wonder of playful exploration. It was the place where we first interacted with the natural world. This place was our introduction to the environment, our community, and the cycles of life.

"The places that adults remember playing in as children are so often natural places - places with a stream, clumps of spongy moss, thick layers of slippery mud, fallen logs, or even a mound of dirt piled high in a vacant lot in the city. There is just something about connecting with the natural world that is so important for all people - particularly children. These are the kinds of experiences that nourish our souls.

"Unfortunately, these days many children don't have the kinds of opportunities that we had not so long ago. Our fast-paced culture now places greater emphasis on going, doing, and becoming, and less on wandering, searching, and discovering. With modern urban and suburban development, natural or wild areas are less available."

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.

The sad bitter child who grew up too fast,
is hardly ever out of my heart.
With succes all around me, I can still feel
her scared eyes looking out of mine.

I was never happy as a child, so it wasn't something I took for granted.
i did'nt grow up as an average, american child.
An average child grows up with an expectation of being happy.

"Like so many of us, I spent a great deal of my life....cataloging all the ways I had been injured and abused...I analyzed and categorized the whos, whats and wheres of my misery.  I was a confirmed pessimist, always able to see the dark side of anything and everything.  My belief was that life was hard and disaster was looming around every corner...Despite life's difficulties, it was my responsibility to do all the good I could and become the best person I could be...I started to notice the dearth of positive emotions in my life...I knew precious little about joy, happiness, optimism, faith and trust....That's when I learned that you don't have to be saddled for life with mental attitudes you adopted in childhood.  All of us are free to change our minds, and as we change our minds, our experiences will also change."

Backward turn backward o time in your flight Make me a child again just for tonight...

For a boy, I had been doing extraordinary things, which caused much wonder. Before I could walk, I could play on the piano, with one finger, any tunes that I heard, then, gradually, with all fingers, even the complex melodies played by blind Mr. Maynard, who, to me, was the greatest man in all the world.
Mr. Maynard lived in the dark but walked and talked with God in the Light. And what the soul of Creation told his Soul, he told me – and I walked and talked with God in those early days in His wonderlands of Peat Meadow and the huge oaks down in Bachelder’s wilds where nobody went but me, for no one else in all My World heard what I heard there – nor saw what I saw there – so it was mine alone, all that glory just mine alone.