Winter Festival

Winter Solstice is a special time, when the shortest day and the longest night occur. At Playgroup, we mark this occasion with a simple spiral walk, featuring lanterns handmade by the children and their carers in the weeks leading up to the solstice.

On the day, children arrive to see the Playgroup space transformed into almost-darkness and with a special spiral laid out on the floor with ivy and stars. Each child takes a turn walking into the spiral with their carer, toward the centre. This walk reflects the days that have been as they have gradually shortened as the darkness of night has lengthened. In the centre, each child’s lantern is lit and are carried on the walk outwards. We carry our inner light and are strengthened as the days will begin to lengthen again.

Activities such as a spiral walk connect children with the seasons and rhythms of nature, as well as with community and sacred rituals which bring us together.

This year we made simple lanterns from a glass jar covered in coloured kite paper, with a wire handle.

Once all the children have walked the spiral, a special story using props is told. It is set in the land of the gnomes, with one gnome making a special journey to find a glowing crystal.

Part of the Playgroup space transformation included a life size crystal cave for the children to peek into:

The day ends with a feast and each child takes home a golden crown as a reminder of the light within:

Knitting and more knitting

Knitting is my world right now. In a few weeks I am due to present, for the first time, a course I wrote to support teachers in bringing knitting to the primary aged school student.

I have been teaching knitting for years now – to parents of the Playgroup I facilitate, to my own children, to homeschooling groups, to the craft group I used to run, as well as volunteering at the school my children attend when knitting is again on the timetable.

Each class one knits a gnome at the school my children attend. One of the things I love most about handcrafts is the way one universal pattern ends up as a myriad of different results in the hands of each unique individual.

Four gnomes – four very different children (and one different pattern)

Last year I spent months researching knitting. I knew it was a healthy activity for brain and body, but as I went deeper and deeper I was blown away by what a truly holistic activity knitting is.

Knitting literally re-wires the brain and encourages new brain connections to grow. It connects left and right hemispheres, and the brain-hand connection is so crucial in laying a strong foundation for literacy and speech. The counting of stitches and rows enhances numeracy, and in later years more complex knitting patterns can contain quite advanced mathematical concepts.

As a communal activity, knitting links us to history, culture and community. Knitting dates back as far as the 11th century in Egypt, with a sock found in a tomb. Knitting harks back to pre-industrial times when individuals knitted or made other handmade goods for themselves and their families or to barter with other small communities. Items were made to last, with beauty and functional design inherent in the process. When we knit in today’s modern times, we are connecting ourselves to the history and culture of knitting, and providing a balance to the disposable plastic culture we find ourselves in today.

When children see something take shape before their eyes, something that they created from raw materials, an inner sense of achievement is nurtured. This sense of ‘I can’ translates to other activities in a child’s life and education.

Research is now continuously emerging which describes how knitting is calming, how it promotes healthy heart coherence and creativity. I have been consciously picking up knitting recently when I feel stressed and the rhythmic movements are relaxing. My fingers, with regular practice, are moving faster and faster lately, allowing my mind to slip into a zone of zen. Try it!

The Tooth Gnome

Years ago I made this tooth gnome, adapting it from some hand drawn notes I was given at a craft group. At the time I had two daughters who were pretty heavily invested in the tooth fairy, so it sat in our soft toy basket, used for many purposes but never teeth.

Then little Robin has come along, and suddenly teeth are falling out regularly. This little gnome matches Robin’s personality so perfectly, and delivers beautiful crystals for him to put on his shelf of special things.

You will need:

~ some felt, approximately A5 size (I always use 100% wool felt). An earthy colour is appropriate for a gnome, since they live close to the earth.

~ some stuffing fleece

~ a little bell or star for the hat

~ some cotton stretch material (tricot, or an old t shirt or singlet will also do)

~ some felt in brown for the knapsack

~ embroidery thread to sew up the gnome, and also for eyes

~ some fleece tops for the beard.

Instructions for sewing:

Take a square of cotton knit/tricot/t-shirt material, and a small handful of stuffing fleece. Be sure to have a long doubled over sewing thread ready to tie. Squeeze the stuffing fleece into a ball and push into the middle of the square of material, then pull the material down and all around it so it ends up as a ball with the ends of the material hanging down. Use the sewing thread to tie it around the bottom (neck), and leave the excess material hanging down. A good size for the head is approximately 3.5-4cm high.

Cut two star bodies out of the felt, and use blanket stitch to sew them together, starting from one side of the neck and going around to the other side – but don’t sew right up to the edge of the neck yet, leave it a bit open with needle and thread still attached and ready to sew.

The star body is approximately 8.5cm across from arm to arm.

Stuff the star body with stuffing fleece, using a chopstick or something similar to poke the fleece into the corners of the star. The body should be fairly firmly stuffed, but leave a bit of a hole down the centre of the star for the head. Use the chopstick to poke the excess material of the head below the neckline and into the body. Push the head down far enough that the string tying the neck will be below the felt and unseen.

Use the attached needle and thread to finish sewing up to the neck, then go around the neck using running stitch so that the star body is now sewn to the bottom of the head, holding it in.

The knapsack: I made an open knapsack, which needs two rectangles of felt, approx 2.5cm wide and 3.5cm high. Sew them together around the bottom three sides using blanket stitch.

Cut some long strips of felt in the same colour as the knapsack. Place these in the centre of the backside of the star body and stitch a few times to hold them. Then they go over the shoulder, across the front of the body and around under the opposite arm, to meet the same place where they began. Sew them to the rear side of the knapsack then do a few stitches into the body again so the straps and knapsack are held firmly in place.

Take some blue or brown embroidery thread and sew a knot at the rear of the head. Pass the needle through the head to the front and stitch some eyes, tying off again at the back of the head. If you are not confident – use two glass headed pins to place the eyes before stitching to ensure they are not too close or too far apart.

Take some curly fleece tops or fleece for the beard – take a moment to place it and get the right amount. Again, tie a knot at the back of the head and using small running stitches in a colour similar to the fleece, attach the beard to the face of the gnome. It is easy to fluff out the fleece a little so the stitches become invisible.

A gnome hat is essentially a large, long triangle, but it’s exact size depends on the size of the head of the gnome. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half, then draw a line from the fold out to make a long triangle, using the head of the gnome as a guide for how wide the hat should be at the bottom. Cut the triangle out and open out the fold, then test to see if it fits snugly around the head. The hat in the picture above is approximately 10cm long. Use blanket stitch to stitch the hat together and add a little bell or star or charm at the end if desired. Then use running stitch to secure the hat to the head of the star gnome, ensuring the hat covers the entire back of the head (because we have not done hair).

Your tooth gnome is complete! If you make one – do post some pics in the comments.

 

Reset

Things have been extremely quiet on this blog, for a few months now. Moving home seemed to take most of the year and most of my energy. And then there was a new, exciting job.

With all my energy going into the home and then into my career, I really didn’t have much to say. I just felt fallow, for a while.

Now we are in a New Year and as I write this the rain is pouring down for second day. I love the sound of it at night when I lay in bed. I love staying at home and playing, reading, watching movies with my children. And I cherish the interior space it prompts me to inhabit.

I have spent these past few months just living; being present with my family and with the job I am called to do in supporting people training to become Steiner Education teachers. After many, many years as a stay at home mum or working in very part time roles close to home, I am relishing my new life travelling into the city to work, dressing up and embracing new responsibilities. Of course it is a big adjustment for our entire family and a new sense of balance is still emerging.

Despite not being much of a party goer on New Year’s Eve, my husband and I sat up well into the night, with that musical from the 80’s ‘Can’t Stop the Music’ on TV in the background, writing down some ideas for 2016. I like to follow Dr Demartini’s guidelines in focusing on the seven areas of life, as he outlines in this post. I’m getting better at making plans each year, and it seems each year I realise more and more deeply that whatever I want in my life is something I will have to create.

Writing and crafting are the big loves of my life at present, and I hope to bring more of my gifts in these areas into the world in 2016. Watch this space!

The landscape near our new home is very different to anywhere I have lived before. Today, in the rain, we walked. That New Year energy is still hanging around, and the cleansing, refreshing rain felt like more than just rain.

I’m ready, 2016.

 

Responsibility.

My eldest child is sixteen.

He drives now. He travels all over our city armed with his transport card and a mobile phone. Right now he is living with my mother because she lives closer to his work experience location, and he has arranged his lunches and everything he needs himself. I have been called upon for one thing only: money.

It doesn’t really matter which child is missing, but one less child means things feel quite a bit more relaxed at home. I use these times to catch up on things, and lately my time is also being spent pondering the larger picture of life. Now that my teenager seems ready to step out in the world alone, I can reflect on the journey of parenthood from the very beginning to this point now – where I feel my son will be fully independent in no time at all.

When I left high school and was pondering career choices, I shied away from many things I was interested in – paramedic, morgue worker (yes, they were what I thought I wanted to do despite having no talent for science and top marks for essay writing and history!). I could not imagine myself doing anything entailing massive responsibility, and I remember that feeling as a conscious thought.

I drifted along in my arts degree, and met my husband literally the week after I finished, providing an escape from having to think about a career. We took off travelling. Then I studied kinesiology – again I shied away from becoming professional. I didn’t want the responsibility of expectation that I could help people.

Ironically, I have embraced the greatest responsibility of all: childrearing. With five children, I have accepted into my life a massive load. When my children were babies and toddlers, it was hard to imagine the worry about teenagers that now keeps me awake into the night. And this is only the first child – there are four more to go!

My son wants a cat. And this extra responsibility, I already know, is too much for me. We always had cats and dogs when I was growing up. It was normal for me. I remember when I was a teenager, left at home for a week whilst my mother went to a spiritual retreat. I came home one night with my older sister to find my beloved ginger cat sitting in the hallway with a puffy, injured eye. That sight was a shock to me, but what was worse is that I was responsible for the cat, and I had no money to take him to the vet. My sister stepped in to save the day but that experience has stayed with me, and not in a good way.

Now we have guinea pigs and our children love them, and they seem just the right amount of work for us to manage. But a cat as well….I would almost rather have another baby than get a cat! The responsibility involved overwhelms me. I wonder about this theme in my life – maybe responsibility is one my major life lessons to come to terms with.

Last night, I held one of our guinea pigs in my arms as he passed away. I sobbed and sobbed over this little animal.

Later, in bed, I asked the angels to help me be strong enough for the responsibilities in my life. I have a deep determination to always be there for my children, but some days things can feel very overwhelming.

Full Moon Rising

An early Spring afternoon. A full moon rising. An irresistible pull to the ocean.

It was an impromptu decision to jump in the car and go.

Some children relished the chance to explore the rocks as well as their physical skills. Some of us relished getting our feet wet and watching the moon rise above the swell of the water near the heads.

We stayed well past dark, bushwalking back to the car by the light of the moon.

A much needed family adventure.

An ode to my Midwife

I noticed that this week it was International Day of the Midwife. It made me think of you and the journey we have shared.

I have been so lucky to live in a country where I have been able to engage the support of one midwife for all of my care throughout pregnancy, birth, and beyond.

You were there with me, beside me, for the births of three of my children. Tears spring to my eyes as I remember those births: the intense ecstatic water birth of my very large first daughter; the gentle, peaceful, melancholy birth of my second daughter, born in my mother’s living room; and the dramatic and joyous birth of my youngest son, born on the rug in my living room at dawn after the birth pool broke.

The births of my children have been initiations. As I have birthed each new soul I have re birthed myself, as a woman and each time as a stronger mother. The gestation and birth of each new soul into my family have been times of accelerated personal growth. Each pregnancy brought new, different fears and issues to the surface, ready for healing. And you always met me in my deepest place, wherever it was on any particular day.

I experienced two hospital births before I turned to homebirth and an independent midwife. The birth of my first daughter was so different to the first two. Despite her almost 11lb size, the labour and birth were just a few hours, and an experience which I would call intense, rather than painful. In fact I experienced some moments of spiritual ecstasy. I knew it was because I was at home, relaxed, with loving support around me. I will never forget the knowing of giving my daughter the best possible beginning, thanks in part to your confident care.

resting at home soon after birth

Our journey together eventually became about so much more than birth. You were there throughout my journey with PPD, with gentle support, and then throughout the hardest days of my life when my youngest newborn had a serious illness. Your confidence in my strength kept me strong. You were probably the only person I knew who understood exactly what my little son and I had been through.

Our relationship has been one of the most intimate of my adult life. The gift of having one midwife and that continuity of care is the gift of time together, and over the many hours of appointments our conversations often strayed far from pregnancy and birth. You showed me what it is to be a mother and woman in her own integrity.

As I leave my childbearing days behind and enter a new phase of life, it becomes clearer to me how much of a rollercoaster ride of hormones and massive life changes that time was. You were a constant throughout those turbulent years, as I found myself through birth and mothering. I only wish every birthing woman could enjoy the kind of support I have been lucky enough to experience.

Tea for Two

My daughters are real little ladies, and one thing they love to do is to drink tea. A while back I threw Lily a High Tea for her birthday, and gradually tea drinking has evolved from a special event activity to more of an everyday thing that we do.

Recently I bought my daughters some new dainty cup and saucer sets. The ones we were using we a mismatched set of cups and saucers left over from my own days as a twenty something who loved all kinds of obscure herbal teas, to sets that the girls had been given but were broken.

I also found, at the grocery store, some awesome looking bedtime tea. Now getting to sleep is not always smooth sailing in our house. In fact, getting three children under eight to sleep at a decent hour is impossible sometimes, especially with hubby working until 11pm most nights.

So this is where sleepytime tea comes in. After dinner, after pyjamas have been put on, the girls come out for their ‘sleepytime tea’. I make them a small pot and they sit at the table with their dainty cups and saucers and sip until the pot is empty. Then they go to bed.

I don’t know if the sleepytime tea really helps them to get to sleep faster, but I do know that the act of coming together before bedtime to sit quietly and sip, brings my girls back into themselves, into their bodies, and they at least go to bed with less shenanigans along the way. I love it how these simple acts become sweet rhythms that anchor our days.

Back to childhood: coloring in.

Suddenly, everywhere I look, the age old traditional childhood activity of coloring in is cool again.

From this article espousing its stress releasing benefits, to the news that a coloring book aimed at adults has hit the top of the Amazon best seller list, coloring in is everywhere.

In my little family, coloring in has always been a mainstay. As a child I loved this activity, and as an adult with children I rediscovered my love for it some 13 years ago when my eldest could first hold a pencil.

I remember a time, around 2001, when my husband and I had separated, but I had followed his move to QLD (a no-brainer that we would reunite, I know). I was in a caravan park with William, alone, and rather scared. I had moved away from my family on a whim, and it was a very different adventure when is ostensibly a single parent with a child to be responsible for.

One particular night I was feeling so lonely, and alone. I made dinner for William and I and then we sat and colored in. In those days I used to go to the massive bookstores in the city to find some cool coloring books, with lovely thick paper and clear lines. On that night it was a stress release: it was about the only thing I could manage to do that didn’t bring on a flood of tears, and that was fun for my son.

It’s funny how certain moments of our lives stand out, never to be forgotten. That night must have been a turning point of some kind to be counted as one of them: later that night I packed our car with all our belongings and drove the hour up the coast to where Sol was living. We moved into his share house and eventually we reconciled and moved into an amazing house on the Sunshine Coast hinterland, where our second son was conceived.

But back to coloring in: whenever we go to a restaurant for dinner I bring the books and pencils. Whenever we go on a long car journey I pack a board for my daughters to lean on and they spend the trip coloring in. Nowadays we do not use textas, but lyras – thick, sturdy German made pencils with pure colours in all the shades of the rainbow. And nowadays there is a much larger range of awesome coloring in books to buy – including the one I received for Christmas – that one made for adults that topped the bestseller list recently.

Easter Traditions

As time goes by, and as my life experience accumulates, I find myself in an interesting space in regards to religion and spirituality. I have moved on from the religion to which my mother introduced me as a child, and find myself gradually moving still further from any expression of organised religion. However my spirituality runs deep, and is intertwined with nature, in which I increasingly find the purest expression of the divine, but despite this depth of feeling I do not yet feel fully immersed in any other category of spirituality, which sometimes leaves me feeling a little adrift.

These issues are on my  mind right now as it is Easter, and this Easter finds Sydney a somber, rainy, dark place to be (kind of fitting really, if you follow the religious meanings of this time).  Frankly I find Easter confusing: with the Christian version of Easter, the Pagan roots from which the Christian version supposedly arises, and the seasonal aspects which are woven into this holiday too.

It is not Spring where I live, it is Autumn, and the time of the Harvest. We don’t normally have pumpkins here at Halloween time in October as is traditional in the Northern Hemisphere; they are in abundance now as the weather takes its turn towards to the colder months. It feels strange to celebrate with eggs, a symbol of new life and new beginnings.

In previous years, I played along with Easter and all its stereotypical accompaniments, planning an Easter Egg hunt for Easter Sunday but adding a homemade, soulful touch with handmade bunnies for the children to keep, to become part of their daily playthings.

In recent years my enthusiasm has waned in sync with the waning of my connection to religion. Our children learn about all religions both at home, at school, and from their extended family, but I was not keen to play a part in something that lacked meaning for me. For years now our family members have been asked not to give us chocolate eggs, and the holiday has passed with us camping, or staying close to home and treating it as some special family downtime.

Now that my daughters are getting older, they bring home an awareness of these festivals and the dilemma has arisen again for me. This year I plan to straddle both the fun of Easter (for fun’s sake!), whilst somehow acknowledging the themes of renewal that Easter carries, as well as the seasonal Harvest time we find ourselves in, and the imminent descent into winter.

To accomplish most of these ideas in one go, I use the Nature Table. In Steiner Education, the aptly named Nature Table is a point within the home that holds a connection to the seasons and happenings of nature outside. I recently made space for a rather large nature table, right in the middle of our living space, and as this weekend progresses it will display the bounty of nature at this time of the year, here, where we live in our place on this Earth.

 

We will acknowledge the season and its gifts with some eggplant lasagne and pumpkin soup. We may talk, as a family, about what new beginnings we are facing, as well as the gifts in our lives for which we are especially thankful. And the table will hold, on Easter Sunday morning, the bounty that magically occurs at Easter. No matter my own spiritual dilemmas, I am determined for this Easter to hold some energy of reverence, and depth, and just that little touch of magic.