As far back as I can remember, Halloween has been my favorite night of the year. While life has gone along, and the magic and delight of many childhood pastimes have faded in their awe, Halloween night has never dulled. The fun of dressing up as whatever you want to be for an evening, seeing all the amazing costumes other folks think up, the comforting glow of jack-o-lanterns on front steps ...
Seasons
Summer Solstice
In honor of the Summer Solstice today, I thought I'd share a fairy passage from William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream": Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their ...
May Faire
With Spring here at long last, it was time for our Waldorf School's annual May Faire. Year after year, rain or shine, the community puts a lot of work and a lot of love into creating a festival in honor of the season. This year, in spite of a little early morning rain, we all gathered around the May Pole and shared in beautiful music, dancing, homemade food, art and games. The day was a ...
Garden Fairy Houses
Making miniature homes for wee folk is a wonderful pastime for folks young and old. At our last house, we built a whole fairy house village all throughout our garden under the big old shrubs. We made little houses, roads, gardens, ponds and a dance hall. Interspersed throughout were delicate little plants like Irish Moss, violets, and ferns. It was a great outlet for ...
Beltane in Bloom
The merry month of May has arrived at long last! Today the sun was shining, a soft breeze was blowing, birds were courting, and bees were humming all around. It was a productive day. I got my potatoes planted and seedlings started. My mama chicken came out of her nest to scratch around with her three little chicks. A friend of mine had a swarm of honeybees move into his backyard over the ...
Ode to the Skunk Cabbage
"Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins…then the pushing up of the skunk-cabbage spathes…" ~Henry David Thoreau (Journal; March 10, 1853) If you can get past associating its pungent odor with an unpleasant smelling critter, our Western Skunk Cabbage, Lysichiton americanus, is quite the striking beauty in the springtime ...
Wildwood Flower
Here are a few of the Spring beauties I've spied out in the forest lately... Pacific Trillium(Trillium ovatum) Red-flowering Currant(Ribes sanguineum) Round-leaf Violet(Viola orbiculata ) Indian Plum (Oemleria cerasiformis) Snow Queen(Synthyris reniformis) Salmonberry(Rubus spectabilis) Pacific Trillium, petals faded pink with age. ...
Bringing the Seasons into Your Home
With the increasingly indoor lives us modern folks are living, bringing a little of the outdoors in can really help us tune in to the natural world. I have always been the sort of person who fills up my house with rocks, sticks, feathers, nests, pinecones and whatever little things I collect on my walks and adventures. When my kids were little, I got the idea for a nature table somewhere, and I ...
Spring Equinox
In honor of the first day of Spring, our family had our annual Equinox egg hunt with natural plant dyed eggs. I looked through this book we got at our Waldorf school store a couple of years ago called "Decorating Easter Eggs" by Thomas and Petra Berger, and got all kinds of elaborate ideas involving dried flowers and leaves, but in the busy pace of life, decided to stick to our traditional ...
Signs of Spring
On a cold February day amidst the snow showers and hail, I'm thinking of all the signs of Spring I've spied around here lately. Nettles popping up, camelias blooming, green daffodil leaves emerging from the mud, and blossoming trees are all reassurances that winter will not last forever. What a welcome sight they are! Out at the coast, things are especially moving along, and on a recent camping ...