We have been working on completing some major parts of our Symbolic-Learning at Home Resources which guide mothers through the process of learning the Principles of Creation with her children or grandchildren. This is our do-it-yourself program which can stand alone, or accompanies our Level 1 Principles of Creation Study mentoring program.
The significant process I have gone through in building these resources illustrates two major things to those of us who are working on becoming special women who encircle together, with our husbands and families, to act as “Protectors” of God’s Laws, His children and His culture.
- A VISION of the abundant and inspired talent, resources and tools that God is preparing now to bless our communities in the future.
- The PROCESS in which we each might personally allow ourselves to be refined.
Several years prior to 2013, I had already been on my journey of learning and then teaching Aspects of the Hebrew Way, and was coming to understand more about what I have termed are the Principles of Creation. I technically began building what I named the Foundation Builder Guide organization in 2013 under the LiberLabs non-profit my husband and a friend had begun, but not officially. The non-profit began with a vision of a 3-day per week K-12 Leadership Education type school and I was the developer of the curriculum for ages 5-8. The original idea was to create picture books and learning project stations in every subject. My friend envisioned us mentoring teachers in this program. Though she had these plans at first, I wasn’t feeling drawn to teach in an environment like that, and so her vision dissolved and we didn’t proceed with that plan. I did, however, feel called to mentor my previous Hebraic Principles content with the mothers in my one-day a week New Commonwealth School community in the Junior program setting.
The first 3 years were spent creating most of the foundational mother & children’s Symbolic-Learning at Home Resources content including stories, songs, dances, exploration & discovery activities, but over the next three years, efforts were put into building the scaffolding of the organization itself, and most importantly it was identified how that first non-profit experience had falsely defined the direction Foundation Builder Guide.
There were several factors that influenced my efforts in the beginning, but which would prove to need refining into what God was teaching me to be more aligned with The Hebrew Way. The following explanations show how God led me to principles which would bring the program into harmony with that Way.
- This inspired program was for the Mother to learn and teach in her home and from her home, not for trained teachers to teach other women’s children in a school-like learning environment. I have come to realize that the Mother’s heart is what we are impressing and inspiring in these Symbolic-learning at Home Resources, and there would be no point to teach this solely to children or grandchildren if the mother/grandmother was not involved. Instead of feeling drawn to train teachers in an environment removed from home, I knew this Foundation Builder Guide was for the Mother who is the house and home. I have seen first hand that this symbolic-language is only appropriately shared through natural and organic environments like storytelling, which provide the delivery method of these Principles of Creation. Although it could be taught by one who was mentored in these symbolic principles, how would that directly help the Mother who is the one who really needs it since her influence on the front lines of her home, family and community are what make all the difference?
- The original Hebraic Principles of Creation-based stories we were writing were to be in a storytelling format, with limited illustrations, not full color illustrated picture books. As my friend and I wrote the original stories, I would mentor her on the symbolic principles that each story focused on. I had a very strong impression that instead of these stories becoming children's books with each page illustrated, they needed to be stories where the mother could engage her storytelling skills. This natural method would help illustrate the images to her children’s minds through hearing them, allowing them to more actively engage in the creative visual learning process as well as allow them to illustrate it for themselves if they chose. That’s what is so great about reading aloud!
- Use Fairy Tales and other folk tales for additional complementary stories first, not the Aesop's Fables. This epiphany came partially because of my previous efforts in learning and researching the symbolic layers of meaning in the Fairy Tales. When I added this part to my research for the program, I intuitively knew these types of stories were more in line with the Hebraic Principles of Creation and showed the true Hebrew Way with the biblical symbols interwoven throughout, rather than drawing a conclusion for the learner, as Aesop’s Fables do. This simple choice would provide another witness of the refinement which was taking place.
- Create the content to be simple magazine-like booklets which could be carried around easily, not as a mentor-training binder. As I wrote the first edition of the Guidebooks in 2014, I was influenced by my training experiences for our Commonwealth School as well as by my friend, in the way she created training materials. I had begun teaching online and had given out a binder of the stories and other materials to the mothers in my classes. After I had received the direction to shift its delivery from a classroom-style training binder to a simpler magazine format, it felt so much better! With the materials in a binder, it had the feel of taking the mother out of the natural home-like environment into the status quo, teacher-training world, externally, that wouldn’t result in her natural internal transformation or in transferring the content into her home very well. The goal was to deliver the content in a simple, organic way that empowers the mother/grandmother as the expert in her own home and to not have her be in any way intimidated by it.
These are just a few examples of how in each step of my journey of building this program for mothers, there were deliberate shifts away from the paradigm I began with, and how that process was revealing changes that invited and facilitated inward movement and accessibility for the Mother.
After that first three year period, I had the opportunity and blessing to experience some deep valleys in the shadow of death which challenged the very fiber of my being. I was homebound and spent many days in bed, as some generational trauma surfaced. A year later, we moved to a new city, and I came to a point where everything with Foundation Builder Guide seemed to be metaphorically ”tossed in the air”. The way I had tried to go forward with it in the past didn’t seem to be working, and I wanted to know how I should proceed. With all my heart I could see what could help mothers in implementing it and I knew in order to be true to the vision God had given me of the complete program, including the Women’s Retreat training, I needed help from God to show me how. One night in October 2017, I knelt in prayer in submission and asked what God wanted me to do with it. The next morning I received a text from a friend in the program saying, “I just had a dream that I needed to help you.” That witness ignited within me a new sense of purpose very much needed in order to continue the process of creating the space for the full support organization to form, re-evaluating all the different parts of content and creating new ways of sharing these Principles of Creation. Foundation Builder Guide has experienced a rebirth, out of which has come beautiful, printed materials, and delivery methods that have evolved into a complete mentoring system for the mother in the home, all in the Hebrew Way.
The following principles show the changes which have come out of that new inspiration which continue to reveal this process of Becoming in The Hebrew Way:
- Invite learning from both sides of the brain through drawing, illustrating and creating, in addition to storytelling. My youngest son is my only child with whom phonics hasn’t worked to help him to read. He read the words from right to left instead of left to right, and he couldn’t blend words, so I began there, telling him that reading the letters from right to left was the “Hebrew Way,” and showing him that reading the letters left to right was the “English way.” It taught me a lot about how he was so wonderfully living his reality in his right-side of the brain. That is natural for our younger than age 9 children! God protects these children through these foundational stages. I didn’t want to disturb that, so I created the English & Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Drawing Guide as a way to create a natural bridge to help the information cross from the right side of his brain over the midline to the left side, which enabled him to utilize both sides. As he and I together, drew the English and Ancient Hebrew alphabet letters in a large notebook, I told him the stories of the House of Israel which I have associated with each and every Ancient Hebrew letter as well as others I found that correspond with our English Alphabet letters. I learned that drawing and storytelling in this way was an even better and more natural way of delivering these Hebraic Principles of Creation, as opposed to just telling a story.
- Show the whole of the Biblical House of Israel story through the Early Semitic Pictographic Alphabet book, not just one part at a time as I had been offering in the program. Writing “the stories” of the House of Israel, was one of my earliest promptings that led to building Foundation Builder Guide in the first place. I wanted to shout from the rooftops this grand sweeping saga of the House of Israel! Since that time, I have been engaged in sharing this wonderful story as I teach of those stories each month, and have even written fictional children’s stories illuminating many aspects of that Biblical House of Israel story. It was a new idea for me when I felt inspired in 2019 to publish an alphabet book which included a House of Israel story in connection with each of those symbolic pictographs in one simple book. I was then guided and directed to offer the Drawing Guide which includes even more research on those House of Israel stories. Not only would this help many learn more about this alphabet, and introduce what Foundation Builder Guide is doing for the world, but it would assist mothers in capturing a greater vision of the whole, before she engages in the parts. It would help her see a more full picture and gain a familiarity with this ancient saga through powerful symbols & simple stories.
- Share the foundational "Sun at Horizon" Principle of Creation with the women first, to build foundation. Since I began writing on my blog about this circle-pattern in the scriptures in 2010, I always held the vision of the primary role this “Sun at Horizon” plays in all our lives and its role in The Hebrew Way; of how it shows us the possibility of the process of ascension. It is one of the most exciting things I love to share about! I couldn’t quite figure out how to emphasize it to the women until the same month in October 2017, I was shown how I could share The Pilgrims Course principle in a stand alone online class. What I soon saw was this was one of the major foundation stones which was lacking from what I had previously taught in those early pilot classes of 2013-2018. Now, in Foundation Builder Guide’s Intro Principles of Creation Class, before I even teach about the Principles of Creation, I introduce women and mothers to this ancient symbol as well as offer ways to support our whole body, mind, heart and spirit through our journey using a Daily Nurturing Guide.
- Enhance the Children’s Hebraic symbol journal page to include all the elements offered and let the Symbolic language be the Guide. The last thing we have refined in the Symbolic-Learning at Home Resources is to combine the single journal pages into twenty-two separate, 10-page My Principles of Creation Journals. These journals, which can be printed off using the pdf link, are placed in each Principle of Creation Module to help mothers guide their children through the materials available. They include a coloring page, places to record the devotional verses or other discovery experiences, the original children’s story and the Biblical House of Israel story. It's a beautiful tool that offers an invitation to explore and discover more. It doesn't tell the mother what to do, or instruct using a lesson plan, but simply empowers the mother by acting as a guide as she uses the online Symbolic-Learning at Home Resources.
These new improvements made the delivery of these resources into the way it was meant to be. It is almost like my earlier experience which had influenced me had to be wiped off and reset. The slate had to be cleaned. I had to learn not to look to that previous experience as a guide for these resources, but to look to God, having no idea what He was directing me to do with this material, but allow Him to show me in small ways, step by step. Each experience confirmed that I already had the content within me, and just needed to adjust this or that in order to share it in a new way, the way it was meant to be shared.
Now, if I went through this guided step-by-step process in the refinement of Foundation Builder Guide’s Symbolic-learning at Home Resources, seeing God create this through me and learning that it has been my commission to teach the Principles of Creation, could others be going through the same process with entirely different, but unique prepared purposes? This has given me the vision that God is guiding others in the same way he guided me, and this is how the refinement of our culture will happen in order for us to create the kind of Zion society we desire - the kind of communities we are going to create after this crisis we are going through. It is very exciting!
The refinement process I went through in building Foundation Builder Guide, reveals the same pattern we all can travel. It is taught in the Foundation Builder Guide’s Intro Principles of Creation Class, The Pilgrim’s Course Tutorial, on Day 3 & 4 recording. This pattern and process guides us to shift and alter our ways of living and being, and our delivery methods of teaching our children, from an externally dependent, one-size-fits-all, coercive, masculine way, to an internal, feminine, guiding, leading, mentoring, and nurturing, self-reliant, truly-trusting-in-our-Creator, Way. It shows the need to weed out and reset all those ways in us that enable the perpetuation of what we have inherited from the Western, Occidental or Greek model way. The original Hebraic way, is an Oriental model. It follows our internal and intuitive guidance system, is holistic, involving the whole self, with physical-intellectual-social-emotional-spiritual parts, being equally engaged, thus bringing balance. It is unseen, and informal and necessitates an entire trusting in God and the unknown.
Now, if I went through this guided step-by-step process in the refinement of Foundation Builder Guide’s Symbolic-learning at Home Resources, seeing God create this through me and learning that it has been my commission to teach the Principles of Creation, could others be going through the same process with entirely different, but unique prepared purposes? This has given me the vision that God is guiding others in the same way he guided me, and this is how the refinement of our culture will happen in order for us to create the kind of Zion society we desire - the kind of communities we are going to create after this crisis we are going through. It is very exciting!
The refinement process I went through in building Foundation Builder Guide, reveals the same pattern we all can travel. It is taught in the Foundation Builder Guide’s Intro Principles of Creation Class, The Pilgrim’s Course Tutorial, on Day 3 & 4 recording. This pattern and process guides us to shift and alter our ways of living and being, and our delivery methods of teaching our children, from an externally dependent, one-size-fits-all, coercive, masculine way, to an internal, feminine, guiding, leading, mentoring, and nurturing, self-reliant, truly-trusting-in-our-Creator, Way. It shows the need to weed out and reset all those ways in us that enable the perpetuation of what we have inherited from the Western, Occidental or Greek model way. The original Hebraic way, is an Oriental model. It follows our internal and intuitive guidance system, is holistic, involving the whole self, with physical-intellectual-social-emotional-spiritual parts, being equally engaged, thus bringing balance. It is unseen, and informal and necessitates an entire trusting in God and the unknown.
This process of transformation illustrates how we each are invited to shift, change and become the more intuitive, internal, feminine, gently nurturing, guiding, leading women and mothers we were meant to be, and building that tribal family community that we desire. This banding together of women, acting as a protective shield, protecting God's laws, his children, and his community in His ways, is essential.
Seeing this process and pattern for what it truly is and does, gives me a vision of what God is creating in us for ourselves, our future and our communities.
It gives us a model to follow, and a visual picture of the refinement that is needed within each of us; the shift from an externally dependent way, to an internally unseen, unknown, trusting in God, self-reliant way.
It's beautiful. And it gives us hope for the future.
To learn more:
Seeing this process and pattern for what it truly is and does, gives me a vision of what God is creating in us for ourselves, our future and our communities.
It gives us a model to follow, and a visual picture of the refinement that is needed within each of us; the shift from an externally dependent way, to an internally unseen, unknown, trusting in God, self-reliant way.
It's beautiful. And it gives us hope for the future.
To learn more:
- Read more about Foundation Builder Guide at HouseoftheBook.org
- See our online learning system at FBGStudy.HouseoftheBook.org
Last exciting thing: we are in the process of editing all twenty-two original children’s stories. These will be combined in a Storybook with the sheet music of original songs and dance steps. Through that storybook, delivered in the Hebrew Way, we can share these important principles from the mother's heart and home, into the heart and home of her children.
