CMP Review 2025-09-11

September 11, 2025

When I first discovered Charlotte Mason, my heart was opened to a world of beauty and joy. Everything around me began to glow, and I felt like I was living in Maurice Ravel’s Le Jardin Féerique — the Enchanted Garden. So that was the name I gave to my first blog.

But in those early days of homeschooling, Barbara said that I shouldn’t choose my favorite composer for composer study. She said I should follow the rotation. And so I did. Purcell, Mozart, Bach…

And then dark clouds came over my garden. A specter called cancer. I deleted my blog. Friction followed frustration. Too much work and too little time. Falling short of my goals. Dreams slipping by and wondering what might have been.

And in twenty years of composer study we never made it to Ravel.

Until last week. The first term of our last year. I select my own pieces now, and first on the list was the Mother Goose Suite.

I thought it would be routine when Le Jardin Féerique came up. With my son by my side, now a young man, we watched and we listened as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony began the opening strains.

Well, it was anything but routine. As the orchestra began its first crescendo, I felt a tear fall slowly from my eye. Looking back at more than two decades of homeschooling, with the end in sight, I could see it so clearly now: the garden was enchanted after all.

@artmiddlekauff