A Little Wild Fox, the Universal Laws of Free Play

By Maria Raiti

Aloha 

 

I'm glad you're here because I've been waiting for you. I'm Maria Raiti, writer, expert in human values education and free play researcher. 

 

As a child I was tremendously shy and embarrassed to answer even when I was told: good morning. I was born in the mountains and I was faithful all my childhood to the game of collecting gray stones on the shore of the lake that, when wet, transformed into sparkling gems. Somehow I have continued to dedicate myself to that task for the rest of my life. 

 

Now, how is it possible that I was waiting for you? Because I know that my mission is not for one individual but belongs to a we. With this book in your hands, you are on the threshold of my very path. Already, I can sense how a pair of attentive little ears and a little black nose, that for -perhaps- a very long time has been searching for a delicious morsel, appear at your side. The little foxes of your own childhood, curious and alert, are ready to take you back to those days when we were more charming, unbribable and wild. If my presence pleases you, I would be honored to walk this pilgrimage with you. 

 

It's time to play, it's time to shine.

 

What is this book about?

 

In a sequence of postcards as simple as poetic, A little wild fox explores, almost from the activation of personal memory, why early childhood is a crucial stage that deserves deep attention and care. María Raiti portrays in its pages some of the wonders that happen in a free play encounter, from the moment the space is swept and cleaned before opening the door to time when the families leave and the air remains filled with a deep and vital calm. 

 

Using the metaphor of the different foxes of the world, its lines guide us to that early age in which the human baby, thanks to its playfulness, lays solid foundations for the future unfolding of its potential.

 

The author collects anecdotes from everyday experience through which she details the multiple biological principles of free play and reveals its universal laws. She shows us how to create ideal habitats in which free play can thrive, how to identify its main predators and how to sustain an ethical perspective to prevent its extinction. 

 

It offers an accessible and enjoyable reading experience for families while providing cutting-edge information for educators, therapists and anyone interested in fostering full human development from the very beginning of life.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maria Raiti
• Release date: Mar 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201442415

Maria Raiti

Me alegra que estés aquí porque te estaba esperando. Soy María Raiti, escritora, experta en educación en valores humanos e investigadora del juego libre.  De chica fui tremendamente tímida y me daba vergüenza contestar incluso cuando me decían buen día. Nací en las montañas y le fui fiel toda mi infancia al juego de recolectar piedras grises a la orilla del lago que al mojarlas se transformaban en resplandecientes gemas. De alguna manera he seguido dedicándome a eso mismo durante el resto de mi vida.  Ahora bien. ¿Cómo es posible que te estuviera esperando? Porque sé que mi tarea no es para un solo individuo sino que pertenece a un nosotros. Con este libro entre tus manos, estás en el umbral de mi mismo camino. Ya se percibe cómo aparecen a tu lado un par de orejitas atentas y una naricita renegrida que desde hace —quizás— muchísimo tiempo anda rastreando un delicioso bocado. Los zorruelos de tu propia infancia, curiosos y despabilados están listos para llevarte de regreso a aquellos días en los que fuimos más encantadores, insobornables y salvajes. Si mi presencia te complace, me sentiría muy honrada de recorrer este peregrinaje a tu lado.  Es tiempo de jugar, es tiempo de brillar. Acerca de mi tarea profesional  Facilito grupos para primera infancia en mi espacio La Casa Naranja, que es mi propio cielo en la Tierra. Deseosa por compartir esta apasionante experiencia, desarrollé un método de aprendizaje autodirigido y lo comparto en diversos cursos y talleres. También ofrezco una formación online de Facilitadores de Juego Libre que se ha convertido en un sorprendente campo lúdico al servicio del desarrollo personal de mis aprendices adultos.  En el ámbito editorial dirigí revistas pedagógicas, participé como autora de propuestas de aprendizaje en destacadas colecciones infantiles y escribí libros de crianza y orientación educativa para instituciones y editoriales. Además de Un zorrito salvaje, publiqué de forma independiente múltiples obras, ensayos, artículos y cuentos. Escribir me sana y me hace feliz. 

Book preview

There's time for everything

Gustavo Roldán

Content

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The playful writing dawns

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Sweep the floor and clean the soul: waiting for the little foxes

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Opening the door: presence in dynamic balance

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The pitoco fox: María, a guardian of free play

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The Tibetan sand fox and the brown bear: Antonio and Leticia, a dyad capable of breaking the ice

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The red fox: a safe harbor for Amparo

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Santa Barbara foxes: Bernardo and Valentin discover friendship

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The fennec fox: Pedro, the train of free play and lively learning

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The arctic fox: Dalila, hunter of letters and readings

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The gray fox: Sol opens to her neuro-geniality

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The bat-eared fox: protector of Catherine and Reuben's crying

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Blue foxes of Chiloé: medicine play for Luciano; Mateo and Mimí; Rogelio, Martina and Pablo

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Other endangered little foxes: Olivia and Agustín, limits and love

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Ethics in the forests: little foxes are looked upon with good eyes and the connection to desire is preserved

Vulpecula: The Fox Constellation. The departure of the little foxes and the cosmic silence

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Glossary

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Epilogue

To Elena Peix, who laughed first and best

Thanks to my grandmothers Yeya and Mamina. Thanks to my grandparents Tata and Papino. In their long summer naps I could steal without reproach the condensed milk and the orange juice in a box.

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Thanks to my mom and dad for giving me the gift of freedom and respect for nature.

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Thanks to my sister and brother, for learning to write before I did and doing it so extraordinarily well. They inspire and encourage me.

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Thanks to Ricardo Cavalli, love of my life, for supporting me daily with touching transparency and for our three children.

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Thanks to Felicia Stern for reading the draft while sowing red poppies in my soul. Your listening heals.

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Thanks to Ciela Asad for being such a loving guide and for being so moved by my foxes.

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Thanks to Janet Lansbury for seeing me and being my safe harbor when my educaring adventure was an invisible dream in the wind

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Thanks to each and every one of the families of La Casa Naranja, what we have shared gives deep meaning to my life.

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And above all, thank you foxes of the world for your tireless way of turning life into a constant opportunity to play. You inspired me to write from the heart.

The playful writing dawns

The sunspot I've had for some time on my right cheekbone has gained pigmentation, standing out in contrast to my milky skin. I'm not convinced to have that mark, more and more noticeable, in the middle of my cheek. Suddenly I remember that caress...

The interview was coming to an end when my spiritual teacher, Sathya Sai Baba, asked me to hold the basket of vibhuti sachets -sacred ash- that he used to give as a farewell gift.

Being taller myself, I leaned down so that he could comfortably reach inside the basket. At that instant we were so close that his soft hair caressed my right cheek, creating in me a sudden dissolution of all perception other than that: a profound peace and a massive disappearance of thought.

The caress was exactly there, where my sunspot is now. I touch it, barely brushing it with my fingertip, trying to imitate the infinite softness of that day that marked my soul and I know I am finally ready to start writing. I take my notebook with a little fox on the cover and my favorite pen; the one that flows by itself when I slide it over the paper. Yes, this book, which for months has been dreamt for in the burrow of my heart, is soon to be born. I intend to portray in its pages some of the countless wonders that take place in a free play meeting, from the moment I sweep the floor before opening the door to the families, to the moment when everyone leaves and the air is filled with a deep and vital calm.

Wild foxes are an ideal metaphor to present the constituent elements of free play that I have been able to observe in detail for more than a decade in my early childhood play center La Casa Naranja in the Buenos Aires suburbs. I always knew that I wanted to facilitate free play not only as a service to my community but also to create a laboratory where I could investigate and systematize the natural characteristics of free play through direct experience. This purpose strengthened my autodidact capacity and I was able to redefine myself in my pedagogical task as a humble guardian of learning.

In a sequence of postcards as simple as poetic, A Little Wild Fox explores the great themes of human development in the first thousand days of life and helps to understand, almost from the activation of personal memory, why this is a crucial stage that deserves deep attention and care. It also presents real cases about how to open up free play in those who face developmental difficulties and learning challenges, many times included under one or another diagnosis of developmental disorders.

Using anecdotes gathered from my daily experience, I explore the characteristics of the ideal habitat in which free play can thrive, what are its main predators and how to sustain an ethical perspective to prevent its extinction. It is here that free play reveals its particular capacity to offer boundaries that are a bond, a meeting point thanks to which the luminous river of life can find its destiny.

Finally, this book understands free play as a meta-intelligence, a space in which all other lines of development can flourish. Play is the most refined biological and evolutionary resource for learning. It's an inherent condition of the manifested universe, an essential delight that gives value, meaning and identity; a universal attribute capable of being found —at least latent— in everything and everyone.

After skimming the edges of the cosmos, the book returns to early childhood, to those first three years of human life in which the free-playing endeavor is most mischievous, cunning and indomitable. It is that age when we could say that the human cub is at its wildest and his foxy ways will have laid solid foundations for the future unfolding of his potential.

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I have grasped all this in an instant, now I am left with the patient task of weaving my intuition on the loom of written words.

From a distance, the cawing of crows and the whistling of king birds intermingle with the chirping of hornbills, sparrows and pigeons. A bee is busy with yellow blossoms next to me. With my eyes closed I can see that, at this very moment, there, in the depths of the play field, a lady fox is giving birth to a litter of young and in their tiny whimpers one can perceive the beauty of their song.

In the midst of this cosmic symphony I open my eyes and writing dawns.

Sweep the floor and clean the soul

waiting for the little foxes

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Before the families arrive, I sweep the floor. Little by little I rescue the space that the other games of family life unfolded on the territory. The sneakers of one of my children, the hoodies, some books, the tennis racquets.

Then I look and look again.

If there are tennis rackets there must be balls too, at least one. I stop and look. I have already allowed it to remain in the playing space but kids always find it and its circular shape is a clear invitation to be thrown with the forcefulness of a stone.

Where is it hidden?

Sometimes, I find it in the cart with the big wheels, or in the wooden vegetables bag. Sometimes I can't find it.

On those days, when the little ones unfold their playful magic in the territory, I am especially attentive. Those remnants of other games, traces of another time and space, do not manage to remain hidden for long from the play masters.

And we're not just talking about tennis balls. Perhaps there is a nerf bullet, a pen, a coin. Tiny scraps that go unnoticed to me and the little free-players pick up on almost instantly.

They may even detect a stray emotion or a cutting word, an ill-spoken look, a falsehood. I must also sweep and cleanse my mind and heart as I prepare the space. Only then will I be able to open the door and be spotless.

If I am coming from a bad day, one of those when I mess up and the ping pong of my emotions and my mind leave more than one sentiment drifting with the consistency of a stone, lost in my inner territory, these days I am especially attentive.

I know that the play masters will bring it to me, as the sea returns lost objects and beings to the shore of consciousness. For us to rescue them, on the one hand. But also, to cleanse itself.

Yes, before the families arrive, I free the territory of the past. I walk the coast at dawn and with patient perseverance I sweep myself, I clean myself.

In doing my work, I free the child from having to be the one to show me that which is obviously present, but in my mind's eye kept absent.

This is not a one-day task. Those of us who cook must prepare many, many casseroles. Those of us who wash dishes must wash so many dishes every day. And those of us who garden must tune the green dance with delicate and persevering effort throughout the seasons. So too, we guardians of free play must keep the mind clean and the spirit available by cleaning our souls.

Not once. Not twice. Always.

In this way, as we sweep and cleanse we continue to learn and stay alive. Until we meet the One who knows all, the play ends and we return home.

Opening the door

presence in dynamic equilibrium

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What is to be done? said the little prince.

You must be very patient, answered the fox. At first you will sit rather far away from me, like this, in the grass. I will look at you out of the corner of my eye and you will say nothing. Language is a source of misunderstanding. But every day you will be able to sit a little closer....

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The back-and-forth movement of transitions reminds us, perhaps, of when we were conceived and our birth. Both require an effort that ignores the existence of time. Forcing it is, in all cases, violent. When I open the door for the first time to a new family, I know I need time. We all do. Especially the little one.

Starting our relationship with exclamations of unbridled enthusiasm does nothing but confuse us all. If I were to welcome in this way, the energy of my effusive greeting would drain towards the girl, due to an implacable logic of hierarchy by altitude.

When I open the door, I am at my center. I breathe serenely, I look at the adult in the eyes. If the child watches me, I accept her gift simply. It doesn't mean we know each other, or that I'm trustworthy. Not yet. Not because she offers me her gaze should I infer that she loves me. Rather I infer that she is asking herself important questions:

Who is she? Where did we come to? Will I be checked out like at the doctor's? Is this place similar to others I know?

I have intentionally designed the space in the style of just another house, similar to many others. With premeditation I have avoided any kind of aesthetics that might refer to any institution other than the family. I like to imagine that the children are visiting an elderly aunt who happens to know about education. I am very careful not to replicate the school composition of the spaces. Least of all, the medical one. In their traditional version, both are quite similar: desks, remarkable pictures, framed diplomas. A certain coldness, a certain distance. Certain signals that put the girl's nervous system on alert.

Will they leave me here without my parents? Will they do something I don't like? Will they poke me?

It takes serious training as a tightrope walker to be able to abandon both the invasive and exalted euphoria and the withdrawal of a cold and meaningless indifference in the welcoming greeting.

To open the door is to offer a first limit with respect. First of all, to myself. If this moment is understood for what it really is —that is to say: a ritual of initiation— however imperceptible and insignificant it may be and even if we only find out about it a couple of weeks later,