Remembering and Renewal

Life has been quite happy and playful for us, so much so that there is often less time to talk about it, much less blog about it.  Moms who run their own businesses have even less time!
But I thought not having a post for over 3 months was a bit long.
So with Spring comes change, more light, renewal and rebirth.

Here's a brief synopsis of the past 3 months:
Lovely gifts all around during the holidays.  I got a great Namaste knitting bag at the time. My daughter received gifts galore, including some wooden trees and bushes that I hand painted and sealed with beeswax.  I will put up a post about them soon.

We had a fun Valentine's Day Fondue party at home.  Late February, we had snow here in Texas and made a happy snow bunny with apricot eyes and nose.

Snowbunnies

Soon a warm Sunday appeared, and we headed out to Barton Creek Trail to do some Geocaching.  Basically, you use a GPS (iPhone), get coordinates and find caches hidden along the trail.  You still have to be observant and do a little hunting to find the hidden boxes.

Old ammunition box

People from all over the world open the metal boxes and leave messages and trinkets.  We left a few crystals and some beeswax. A picnic by the creek after crossing it makes for a perfect respite.

Late March we did more trail walking and came across morel mushrooms.  What a pleasant surprise!
Finding mushrooms made me think of Children of the Forest and how the family gathered and dried them for the winter. It's so important to know which ones you can eat. More about our mushroom hunting on my food blog: Veggiebytes.com 

Farmer Carolan has been composting, preparing beds, shoveling soil, hanging supports and sending out his love to our little backyard garden.  Here's a pic of all the green "volunteers" about 1 month old after our snowfall in February.

Arugula, Bok Choy, Gai Lan, Lacinato Kale, Snow Peas

Onto crafting, we particpated in our school's Knit-A-Thon by making some scarves and hats.  I knit some wrist warmers for myself and a Noro silk hat for my mom for when she goes to Alaska in the summer. I'm also so happy I had time try out Nicole's felted egg tutorial at Rhythm Of the Home.  I got to do it twice: once with my dear daughter and then with ladies from our school's handwork group.
The pics are coming, I promise!

Faerie Dreams

As we move into April, it seems like all the brightly colored flower faeries have appeared.  We attended the Greenwood School's annual Faerie Festival and had fun flitting and flying. It's always good though to come back and have some quiet time in our own realm.

Happy Spring to Everyone!

December 2009 - Advent Table

This year I thought it would be fun to have an Advent Table and celebrate a countdown to Christmas Day.  Being a little Vaisnava family, you would wonder why we would have a Nativity Scene and how does the anthroposophical view of Christ line up with our beliefs.  We both believe in spiritual evolution, with the soul reaching the highest level in the material world as a perfected human being.

These traditions and festivals are supposed to fill our spiritual longings and bring forth light in our lives...especially in the dark of winter.  We are looking for meaning and it's not something you can buy at the mall.  Many cultures celebrate the winter Solstice, the return of the sun, and it's no coincidence that Christmas day is very close to that time. 

We enjoyed reading a light-hearted book for young children, "The Festival of Stones", about a faerie named Tiptoes Lightly. We received it as a belated birthday gift and it was delightful to read the stories each Advent week.

1st week of Advent - The Mineral Kingdom

Our varied selection of minerals and shells

24 day advent candle

2nd week of Advent - The Plant Kingdom

We added some juniper (mountain cedar), pine cones, the cutest rosemary topiary tree and the apple candle used at the kindergarten Advent spiral walk.

3rd Week of Advent - The Animal Kingdom

May we not be stubborn donkeys and be gentle like Mary's.

4th Week of Advent - The Human form of Life

Each day of Advent, we added a shining star to our blue silk sky, culminating with the largest star of all on Christmas Eve.  As followers of Vedic astrology, the chart of the planets and stars at birth is significant.

Hope you had a special Christmas filled with light and surrounded by loved ones.

Book Bargains

We love to read at bedtime and contrary to traditional Waldorf bedtime routines, we like new stories... almost every night.
I'm sure if I had started earlier with reading only the same couple books, my daughter's love for the new and exciting would not have been ignited.  She still likes books with pictures but is able to create an image in her mind's eye of what I have read from books without any.

I like to find vintage books with beautiful illustrations along with mode of goodness storylines.
Many modern children's books have garish drawings, silly stories, adult sarcasm or are recreated from the original book after it had been made into a movie.  We love to find treasures at Half Price Books.  I'm still waiting to find beautiful books by Elsa Beskow and Sibylle Von Olfers and I look every time.
We feel fortunate to have found some special ones below.

Here's a beautiful Waldorf-style Snow White book:



It's the traditional Grimm's tale with the wicked queen visiting 3 times.  I love Snow White in a long white linen dress. The dwarves are very adorable and also quite elemental looking.  From my 80's media-rich upbringing, they look like the California Raisins, but I did not mention that to my dear daughter.

Rudolf Steiner had recommended books with moving pictures or components that the child could move. Making Picture Books with Moving Pictures looks like a fun resource for those who would like to explore the craft. It teaches you how to make interactive books.
I found this delightful reproduction of a vintage Merry Magic Go Round book where you can turn a circular disc to see a changing scene.




Here's one example....watch the bowls on the left..there is no one eating.



Then see the bowls on the right and the Three Bears having their porridge.



The book below is a 1947 vintage craft, fingerplay, jump rope song, wonder book.
We even found a song that my daughter sings in Kindergarten.


Oats, peas, beans and barley grows,
Oats, peas, beans and barley grows,
You nor I nor nobody knows
How oats, peas, beans and barley grows.

Here the farmer sows his seed,
Then he stands and takes his ease,
Stamps his foot and claps his hand,
And turns around to view his land.

I have also found some early childhood education gems like "You Are Your Child's First Teacher" (an older edition from the 80's) and "Children At Play".   You can sometimes find older Goldenbooks as well that show children actually engaging in imaginative play.  Our favorites we have found are Little Mommy, Nurse Nancy and Doctor Dan, the Bandage Man

Wishing you wonderful books and the precious time spent reading together!
Cristina

Pumpkins and More

What fun it is to see orange pumpkins!
Here's a recap of the days before Halloween up to the kindergarten
lantern walk in celebration of Martinmas.

We found 3 nice pumpkins at the AWS pumpkin fundraiser.
Not organic but a good price for a good cause.
Here's the harvesting of the yummy insides!

No need to let this all go to waste even though it's not exactly a pie pumpkin.  It made great pumpkin soup, and pumpkin puree to add to our kitty's food.  Cats love pumpkin, in case you didn't know!
Don't forget the seeds make yummy snacks that build patience and are a great nutritional value.

Pumpkin and chocolate chip pancakes!

I was so proud of my husband for creating this spooky pumpkin lantern.

It went on the Pumpkin Path but we did not get to see it as we only went on the Parsnip Path for the wee ones.

After we did about 10 minutes of trick-'o-treatin' on Saturday night and getting about 2 handfuls of candy, we called it a night and told our dear daughter about the lovely Pumpkin Fairy who gives a timely gift in exchange for candy.  This was quite well-received and even though she didn't come early in the morning, more like afternoon nap time, her little gift was met with awe.

She brought a golden felted pumpkin and a glass beaded bracelet/anklet.

The cute small one was wet felted by little miss, next to the one a la the Pumpkin Fairy.  The foreground one I made for a handwork group that is giving handmade items to sell in the school store.  So if you go to the Juniper Tree store, and see an orange pumpkin, you'll know who made it.

A lovely set of lanterns made by our little miss. One sun-bleached one from last year and this year's one made from a small mustard jar. 

Hope you were able to celebrate the autumn season with light and with the humblest of all lanterns that gives so much.... a happy pumpkin.

Festivals of Light

As fall progresses and the days get shorter, people around the world will be celebrating festivals of light.
In the Waldorf tradition, Martinmaas and colorful lanterns ask us to remember the light within.  In India and places where people celebrate Vedic culture, this is a special month called Kartik.  During Kartik, there are many festivals including a very popular one called Diwali.
Diwali is a celebration of where hundreds of lamps and candles, called diyas, are lit in homes, businesses, and temples.  It is to commemorate a special day that happened hundreds of years ago when Prince Rama returned to be king of Ayodhya. Sri Rama rescues his kidnapped wife Sita from the wicked Ravana who was the king of what is known today as Sri Lanka.  Prince Rama had also been exiled from Ayodhya for 14 years as a boon given to his stepmother Kaikeiyi.  This is a magical story filled with monkeys, flying flower-airships, battles, and love and devotion.  It is called the Ramayana and it's a well loved story in India and abroad.

I was lucky enough to participate in a Waldorf-inspired puppet show to celebrate Diwali at my daughter's kindergarten class.  All the children watched with awe.  One particular part they liked was when Rama goes to chase the golden deer that Sita asks for. My daughter was so happy to see Hanuman (Rama's most beloved and dedicated monkey friend).  Each child was given a diya to take home.  Children in a Waldorf school typically learn about the Ramayana in the 5th grade when studying world cultures.

Our Ramayana Finger puppets with handmade diya

At home we celebrated the festival of Govardhana Puja, which is a Vaisnava holiday to remember when a special boy named Krsna protects the whole village of Vrndavana from a horrible rainstorm.
The villagers of Vrndavana had gone against the tradition of worshiping Indra, the demigod of rain and the heavens, and decided to offer their thanks to a special hill named Govardhana.  This hill would give them everything they needed, such as grass for the cows, fruit trees, water, caves with minerals, etc.  Indra was quite angry and sent down rain for a week.  Krsna picked up Govardhana Hill as easily as a mushroom and protected everyone.

One of the many traditions of celebrating is Govardhana Puja to make a large feast including a hill of sweets. Since we have been trying to reduce our consumption of sugar and being sick the last week, we decided to make a hill of uppma (a semolina based savory polenta type dish..recipe here) with fresh veggies from our garden.  This was decorated with flowers, tulasi (holy basil), and some of my daughter's cows.
We also made burfi (a condensed milk sweet).

Govardhana Hill with Cows (In Sanskrit, Go means cows, Vardhana means gives pleasure)

Another ritual we do during this month is offer light to baby Krsna and sing a precious song called Damodarastakam.  Similar to the worship of the Christ-child, we come to see the Divine in the form of a baby.  He is sweetness personified.

Hope you are celebrating meaningful festivals too!