Homemaking as a Social Art
Creating a Home for Body, Soul and Spirit

Veronika van Duin

$24.00

I longed for a book like this when I was a young mother and wife. I felt so alone in my desire to create a home in which my entire family could thrive. I also felt rather lost and uncertain in the face of the enormous responsibility that entails - I often simply did not know how to go about things, what to do. Such a book, of course, didn't exist 20 years ago - fortunately for all, it does exist now.

Veronika van Duin was trained as a nurse and lived for many years in a community with people with special needs, her own family and, later, teenage boarders. She and her husband currently live with young children with special needs. Her own children are now grown. Needless to say, she has had ample experience in making a home for diverse personalities with extremely different needs. She shares her experience and insights in Homemaking as a Social Art.

Her perspective is that the task of homemaking is at the center of our social existence - a role that creates the heart of society and is nothing less than an art. She never claims that there is a blueprint for creating the perfect homemaker, but rather offers principles and observations based on a study of what she calls the seven "life processes" and how they affect us. She addresses the significance of rhythm, relationships, artistic environment, caring, self-development, and much more besides.

This is a welcome and supportive work - one which I believe will be embraced with gratitude by those who read it. Highly recommended.

Veronika van Duin is also the author of A Rainbow over the River - Experiences of life, death and other worlds.

The Spiritual Tasks of the Homemaker

Manfred Schmidt-Brabant

$12.95

Manfred Schmidt-Brabant helped organize the first-ever Conference for Homemakers at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. This book presents the three lectures he delivered at this gathering which drew thousands from all over the world (instead of the hundreds that were expected), eager to come together to consider a fundamental aspect of human life that has become everywhere neglected.

I am so grateful that he honored homemaking as the life-giving art that it is - especially when I consider that even now, at a time when I would have thought we'd all "know better," such honor is rarely bestowed upon those who truly rock the cradle of the world. I find his lectures fascinating in their connections of daily life with cosmic reality. I also deeply appreciate the practicality of his answers in the question session at the end and his emphasis on understanding as the foundation for creating today's homes.

This is a wonderful antidote to our modern, pedestrian view of homemaking ("Ward, I'm worried about the Beaver.") - an invitation to crown our homes with grace and gratitude.