Well, here it is, Advent already. I’m not too great at marketing, but this is to let you know that my co-author Eileen and I are having a sale on our Advent and St. Nicholas Festival E-Book until December 7,2013. The sale price is $9.99—half off the regular price of $19.99.

It offers poems, stories, songs, crafts, and many special ways that families, schools, or childcare professionals can celebrate the whole month of December with children.

A measured, calm approach to the winter holidays gives children time to dream, live into the stories of their faith and the season, and count the days of Advent. Children can savor the passing of time with peaceful, delicious anticipation and gentle, useful activity, rather than experience the holiday as a single, frenzied, blowout day that is over all too soon. A peaceful Advent full of simple pleasures and togetherness is what they’ll remember later, not the package-ripping and specific, expensive gifts. We wrote this e-book with the intent of helping families create a thoughtful, heartfelt approach to the holidays, with less rushing commercialism and more togetherness time.

This mosaic is a peek at what’s in our Advent and St. Nicholas Festival E-Book. Click on the title  or any of these photos to be taken to the full description of the e-book contents and place to buy it, on the Little Acorn Learning store. Many thanks for reading this far, and for spreading the word to anyone who might be interested in our offering.

Blessings of the season on you and your loved ones!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday. I warn you, this post is going to try to do too much.

Thanksgiving vacation has been all in all pretty great. It started a day early with my grandmother’s funeral services. That first weekend was full and emotionally difficult, but the funeral services eased into an early Thanksgiving family gathering (Ian’s family this time), where people were kind and gentle to me and let me slide on everything because I was sad, and then a party at my home for Tony and our local November birthday girls. My friends made it soooo easy for me to host that party by helping to prepare my house. Once I got over being embarrassed by the neglected state of things, I let go and allowed them to make the place sparkle and shine. When the day of the party came, I just got to sit back and enjoy having my home full of lovely, friendly people. Many, many thanks to Lady K and Jami for making it so perfect.

I got to do two trail runs with Stacy. She is a super running partner for me—very encouraging and she has introduced me to the joys of running on the trails instead of the street. We’re evenly matched, and that means I don’t have to worry about holding her back, and vice verse. Running near the river means we get to see vistas and oak trees, deer trails and sparkling sunshine. This fills my heart as much as the running does.

While they had time off, the kids and I did some normal stuff, like shoe buying and errands. We had lunch with Papa and Uncle Mike one day. I couldn’t help but think I should go and visit my grandmother, but … the time for doing that is done.

We went running at Del Campo high school’s track on the day before Thanksgiving. We were getting ready for The Run to Feed the Hungry the next day. Thanksgiving morning dawned and we four went to East Sacramento to run a 10K. My goal was to run together as a family, keeping to our six-almost-seven-year-old’s pace—run when he could run, walk when he wanted to walk. It kind of worked and kind of didn’t. I kind of got the experience I had hoped for, but … well, let’s say that Ian was right and I was wrong and it is evidently too hard for fast boys to slow down enough to meet mama’s family experience agenda. We’ll chock this up to experience; I don’t actually know if we can do this event together again.

Asher ran 5.5 miles. We walked the rest and I’m so proud of him. He was absolutely determined to run, and lots of people cheered him on all along the course.

Here we are after the race. There were approximately 30,000 people there. The weather was perfect. The mood, festive. The course started and finished at Sacramento State University and looped through lovely East Sacramento. It was nice and flat.

And let me boast a moment by saying that running this 10K was an incredible accomplishment for me, personally. I’ve never been able to run this far in my life. I am slow, but the training I’ve been doing these last two months has paid off.

A big part of why I’m pushing so hard to rewire my brain about exercise is because I see how naturally movement and athletics comes to my family. I see how much joy they derive from using their bodies and I want very much to be a good role model for them. I also want to be physically capable of doing things they like to do. They have inspired me to be better about this aspect of my life.

Anyway, Thanksgiving. We went to my parents’ home for Thanksgiving dinner and enjoyed a few hours with them and my brother and his girlfriend. It was relaxed and easy, and just what I needed.

Sorry, more trail run pics. (Stopping just a sec to take a photo is fun and then I have pretty evidence that I really did it.) Stacy doesn’t seem to mind. We ran yesterday morning I am thrilled to keep going even after meeting our race goal.

We visited with my mother’s side of the family yesterday, too. Her brothers were in town visiting, so we got all five siblings together. Many thanks to my cousin Emily and her husband Mike for hosting. The shape of our family has changed and it was nice to meet all the kids and get them together. It was sweet how well they got along!

Asher and I have been reading a lot about Pilgrims, and the “first Thanksgiving” of 1621, which is entirely mythologized in our American culture. We’ve read about the time when the Wampanoag encountered the colonists at Plymouth, Massachusetts, who were able to settle the area because the former occupants, the Patuxet tribe, had been wiped out by disease. Amazingly, this interest Asher has is completely his—I didn’t choose these topics or books for him. Doubly amazingly is that both books about this time of American history do not give the American myth of the first Thanksgiving.

We’ve also been reading about Vikings, and how archaeologists and historians know what they know about them. Asher seems to have a budding interest in history.

We watched some “Avatar The Last Airbender,” a family autumn staple, and a movie called “Arthur and the Invisibles.” We have snuggled in, cooked and eaten meals together, gone to piano lessons and basketball practice, and the boys have started working on Christmas projects. Ian and I had a date night, Lucas did math homework, and I painted a bit and today I planted irises and tulip bulbs.

See what I mean? Too much in one post, and a full and wonderful week. We are thankful for so much love and abundance in our lives!

Monday is Martinmas. I’m planning on taking the kids out for a nighttime walk, to take in the cold November night and remember how grateful we are for our many blessings of warmth and safety, full bellies, friendship and light. In the spirit of generosity, I share my little poem with you.

Saint Martin Chant

© by moi, Sara E. Wilson

Into the night, we bravely go!
Within our lanterns a sprightly glow,
Within our hearts a kingly flow
Of sharing and loving to show.

Into the world, we boldly walk,
Singing our courage around the clock.
We listen to others as much as we talk.
Even in darkness, we never do balk.

In giving to others, we ourselves grow.
Thanks to Saint Martin, by giving we know
We reap so much more than ever we sow.
We march for the good, our spirits aglow.

This poem was written originally for Little Acorn Learning’s November Enrichment Guide, which happens to be on sale at the moment at $19.99—$5 off the normal price. Among many other wonderful offerings for the month of November, this e-book features stories of peace and light, lantern songs, and a puppet show for Martinmas.

Enjoy!

I am pulling winter clothes out of the totes stockpiled in the garage, hoping that some of these pants will fit Asher now. The few pairs of pants in his dresser are now too small, and the trees’ brilliant hues are telling me that cold weather is coming. I try telling my boys that, but they still insist on shorts and bare feet, whenever they can get away with it.

I do this turning over of belongings several times a year, unearthing Lucas’s old items from years’ past and diving into bags of clothes outgrown by friends’ children. The process isn’t pretty. Things are dusty and worn. I never manage to make the garage pile neat again when I’m done, much to my husband’s dismay. I also inevitably find a bag or box of forgotten items we just accidentally missed out on reusing. Sometimes, timing is everything.

This suburban archaeology makes me realize how my boys are always growing, growing, growing—whether I am OK with it or not. I feel nostalgic when I touch some old things again, after several years of their being absent and in storage, and I sometimes feel sad when giving current now-too-small things away. However, mostly I feel connected and grateful whenever I do this. I know that families all over the world do this very thing, every season or two, hoping to eek a little more use out of this shirt, these socks, those pants. We pass items along to younger siblings or friends, or strangers, with the hope of being helpful. And this pleases me.

To all those who have passed well-loved and still-useful items to us, thank you. Your generosity keeps us warm.

What could be better on a day off than a nature walk?

We are blessed to live just five minutes from the glorious and extensive American River Parkway. Although I grew up around here, I really didn’t use this local resource until I had children of my own. I revel in the opportunity to spend a few hours in the middle of what seems like nowhere— sometimes, on days like this, we can carve a glorious afternoon out of our busy schedules.

Out here, the sky is bluer, the dry grasses smell sweeter, the fallen acorns are plentiful, and the sunshine through the wild grapes vines and wild figs is like millions of stained-glass windows in gold and green, orange and red. The river runs swift most of the year, and right now the salmon are struggling upstream to spawn.

But on this day, we never made it to the actual river. We found a sleepy pond with cool, clear water and a sandy beach. Our hike fizzled here, in favor of staying and playing in water and on shore.

There was important leaping to do.

And flying.

You can see why we stayed, right? Even our little dog deigned to get his fancy paws wet and dirty.

He’s not much of a water dog, but we’ve seen him become braver over the last couple of years as we have taken him along with us on our family adventures in nature.

Lucas waded far out into the water to pick up this damaged dragonfly. After a few moments of resting in Lucas’s hand, it flew away despite missing half a wing.

The whole thing was utterly sublime—sparkles on the water and yogic reflections, warm sun, and a cool breeze in the shade—until my boys realized that this was an ideal place to play shoot-’em-up war games. And since my rules on such behavior are “No shooting/war in the house” and “No shooting/explosions/laser sound effects in the car,” I had to admit they were within bounds to play that game there. We moseyed on home not too long after they started that, however.

This is a great blue heron surveying his territory. He sat there on his perch like a king the whole time we enjoyed his pond.

Well, I really don’t like to go this long between posts. All I can say is that our lives have been remarkably full of all kinds of wonderful and challenging pursuits, including lots of work and play. While I enjoy writing here and really need to write here, sometimes I’m just too worn out.

Ah-hem

I will catch up a bit by saying that our Michaelmas festival at our Waldorf school was amazing. This year our son’s sixth-grade class created and manned the dragon—and what a dragon it was! Our new class teacher brought with her a host of new ideas about the Michaelmas dragon, its form, its symbolism, and how we might create it, interact with it, subdue it. I’ve been attending Michaelmas festivals for eight or so years and I’ve never seen a dragon like this one. Our students, teacher, and a team of clever parents engineered it.

For one thing, the dragon didn’t come lumbering onto the field at the appointed time. It spontaneously reared up out of the body of our community, out of ourselves.

Maybe I can show you …

Each sixth grader carried a large Roman-style shield, silver gray on one side, gold on the other. They arrayed themselves around the circle, standing quietly among the other grades and spectators.

The festival carried on as usual, with the twelfth grade performing a play for the people of the land: this time the Arthur sword-in-the-stone legend. The young villagers danced. When the alarm sounded, the valiant fourth graders offered the villagers protection with their newly made shields. The drum boomed. This is normally when a fearsome beast would approach the field.

Instead, our sixth graders, dressed as Michaelic soldiers, began to march and form up into ranks. The terrifying drum continued to beat, but no one knew what to expect—no manxome foe was apparent. Saint George searched and searched the field of battle for his opponent. Where was the threat?

And then a remarkable thing happened. The sixth grade moved again in response to loudly barked commands. They formed up into a Roman battle formation called the testudo, or tortoise formation. The shields covered their bodies, hiding them behind a great silver wall.

a

From its hiding place, the dragon’s head emerged and the body joined up to menace George. A technology dragon was formed of chips and wire and lights, all silver and gleaming, and spitting smoke and ferocious noises!

The dragon’s tail was wireframe with tech parts all over it.

It was a dragon representing a threat of our modern day, as we are frequently consumed by and controlled by our own technology. We are fighting, some of us, to maintain our humanity in the face of this changing world. Some are fearful of technology, some embrace it. It is both the miracle of today and a thorny problem. The important thing is to recognize it—how it is changing our communities, our families, ourselves—and confront it, and make sure that it is working for us, and not the other way around. This is how I see it, anyway.

Furthermore, I think it’s fascinating and timely. These sixth-grade children are on the brink of becoming (probably heavy) technology users. Perhaps some already are. Our son has dabbled in a very circumscribed way. As they mature, they will learn to use the Internet for research and for fun, join social networking sites, encountering friends and strangers online. They will enjoy video games and smartphones and YouTube and Skype—all of which are fun and exciting ways to connect in a global community. Navigating this will be new and strange and wonderful for all of us. And we must face it with courage and compassion.

As usual, our strong, noble seniors surrounded the beast, and together with the sweet, hopeful spirits of our second graders, brought this dragon to its knees.

What doesn’t show in my photographs is that our community was suffering mightily on this day, especially this senior class, for we very recently lost a student to suicide. It is a tragedy that none of them will forget, and this circle of brave young men and women was one shining soul short. I think no one ever anticipated that suicide and loss, and tremendous grief, would be a dragon to face on this beautiful day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k07q8q2Aex0

(Thank you, Hinmans, for the terrific video!)

Afterward, the sixth grade class enjoyed the praise and congratulations of many. Some said it was the most interesting dragon they had seen. Many adults found it to be wonderful and thought-provoking. Our kids were somewhat unsure of this innovative design. Lucas even despaired that it was too weird, and wouldn’t it be better to have a normal dragon?

Here they are, all tuckered out after the hot performance. I really love these kids. And we are all so very proud of them. Many thanks to our class teacher for encouraging all of us to embrace innovation and change. I think she is brilliant for getting this strong-willed class to march to her drum within days of her joining our class.

Here are the morning verse and afternoon verses by Rudolf Steiner that the sixth grade had been saying in preparation for Michaelmas. I especially love the second one:

Oh Michael,
I entrust myself to your protection
I write myself with your guidance
With all my heart’s strength
That this day may be come the
Reflection of
Your destiny-ordering will.
*
I bear my worry into the setting sun:
Lay all my cares into its shining lap.
Purified in Light
Transformed in Love—
They return as helping thoughts,
as forces rejoicing in deeds of
Sacrifice.

So, what do you think? Pretty different, eh? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Also, you can read about our past Michaelmas festivals here:

School Community Michaelmas Festival

Our Beautiful Michaelmas

Michaelmas Time

School Michaelmas Festival

Michaelmas in the Waldorf Kindergarten

For any new readers, I would like to humbly mention that we have a beautiful e-book for sale that is perfect for this special time of year. This one is our Autumn Equinox & Michaelmas Festival E-Book. Eileen and I are really proud of it.

Here is a mosaic of just some of the images from the projects and activities we offer in our e-book.

Lucas drew this for me on a day when he stayed home sick.

I went to two parent meetings this week, one for first grade and one for sixth.

In first grade, we parents don’t all know each other. We are reaching our way into new relationships, new trusts. We have a new teacher and we’re working out things like how to handle Michaelmas with our little ones, lunch sharing, who has dangerous nut allergies, and how the kids are supporting each other through the change and challenge of first grade, with desks, worktime, mental math, after care, etc. We played get-to-know-you games. Within the first moments, a clever and gregarious dad had us all laughing. We have a long way to go together. It was a good start.

Our class teacher taught us this quote from Rudolf Steiner:
“Form is movement come to rest.”

This makes for a nice segue. First graders are learning their first form drawings. The class is forming. The parent body is forming.

In sixth grade, we class parents know each other well. We’ve volunteered together; chaperoned together; sewed, cooked, and worked together. Over the last five years (or more), we’ve built friendships that mirror—or even contrast—the friendships the children have with one another. We have supported each other through tough emotional times, through change and loss and struggle, through moments of great celebration like births and birthdays, new jobs. We have a new teacher in this class, too. And she has both the joy and challenge of winning over and leading a cohesive, cooperating parent body.

And though taking two evenings away to meet with new and old friends at school is an inconvenience, it’s also deeply satisfying to be in community. See, parenting can be lonely work. It can feel as though one is standing on the shore, trying to direct and guide the ocean waves—“You, come now.” “You, not so far!” “Wait, not yet, I’m not ready.” Stand your ground. Bend when appropriate. Sink or swim.

We parents don’t all make the same decisions with and for our families. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, or have the same value system. Families come in different shapes and sizes, with different routines, different pastimes, different stuff. We sometime crave more or less connection. But despite these contrasts, we are all here on this journey together. Our trip through Waldorf as parents is a kind of echo of our children’s experience, or maybe the base note that lies underneath their intricate melody. We get to paint and carve wood less frequently than they do, but along the way, and by involving ourselves and intersecting with the school, the class, the parent body, and the festivals, we have the opportunity to find soul-enriching connection and learning just the same.

Last night our class teacher taught us how to make a geometric drawing. (See what the children have been up to in the photo above.) We got to use our children’s high-end, magnificent, school-supplied tools: the sexiest compass I’ve ever touched, shiny metal rulers, mechanical pencils, a 30-60-90 drafting triangle. We made a circle on our paper and added six intersecting circles, forming a flower inside with six petals. It took time. We had to listen and concentrate. Our class teacher had to be precise in her verbal instructions. It was a taste of the kind of demanding and beautiful work our children are doing in their main lesson.

It also formed a visual metaphor for where our sixth grade child is in his or her development. This is the soulful part: the teacher allowed us to experience the meaning through the metaphor of drawing. The twelve rays we drew represented the twelve main subjects they will be studying this year: geometry, Michaelmas, minerology, Roman history, physics, astronomy, business math, the Fall of Rome and the Golden Age of Islam, geography, math/percentages, medieval history. She included review/sleep as a ray—a key component to their learning and processing of the curriculum. The twelve rays find their way to the center, into the soul life of the child.

We talked about how sixth graders need form, order, and support in this because they are not quite able to order themselves yet. They are competent, but not organized. Self-aware but not self-possessed. They are special individuals who crave conformity and unity. They are forming. Each of the drawings above is the same form, but look how individual the expression of it turned out. Amazing.

…

Oh—the Michaelmas dragon is going to be AWESOME!

Meet our new hens, Chocolate, Caramel, and Eliot (named by previous owners). They were kind of doomed to be harried to death/eaten by dogs, so we took them in. We were supposed to take in four hens but the Ameraucana died from dog injury before we got there to pick them up.

They are 2-year-old Rhode Island Reds and have already laid five eggs for me since Sunday noon. They’re in quarantine for 30 days.

Good grief! We now have 17 hens! That, my friends, is a lot of chickens.

We lost our only Rhode Island Red, Fireball, who was one of our first five adopted birds, about a month ago. She was at least 6 years old when she died.

I feel like this might not be the most positive post. But it’s my blog and I get to tell the truth.

I can’t get excited about “Back to School” anything. This isn’t to say that I’m not looking forward to the school year starting up. Believe me, I am! We’re currently in the middle of Week 11 of Summer Vacation. School for us starts after Labor Day.

What I’m talking about is all the fuss that’s made over “Back to School.” The sales, the school supplies, the new gadgets, the Buy Buy Buy mentality that every store in America is trying to get you to embrace. Going back to school doesn’t mean you have to buy everything.

You can go back to school wearing the same clothes you wore all summer (around here the temps don’t dip until late October).

You can go back to school with any old notebook and old pencils and pens.

You can go back to school with last year’s backpack, lunch box, sneakers, or whatever.

(Pretty anti-American of me, right? Check out the data. “According to NRF’s 2013 Back-to-School Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, families with school-age children will spend an average $634.78 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics, down from $688.62 last year. Total spending on back-to-school is expected to reach $26.7 billion.”)

Now, I like shopping. I like deals. I like buying new things for my kids. But I don’t like being made to feel like I have to—that my child’s self-esteem will suffer without all-new stuff. Nobody needs all-new stuff.

I don’t like the way I get sucked into shiny ads or sales, looking for deals and cute things that we don’t really need. And I really don’t like the way that ads attempt to suck in my kids. (Leave us alone! We’re fine just the way we are.)

And I REALLY don’t like the giant, nationwide push to make fashion something kids need to think about. (Fashion is bullshit and can even be harmful. In this regard, I am lucky. My boys seldom notice fashion trends. At this point, this is what they look for in a shoe: “Does it make me really fast, Mama?”)

When the weather turns colder, we’ll buy jeans.

When there are no more pencils or pens in the kitchen drawer or my office, we’ll buy more. (And I’ll check the kids’ desk and “drawing baskets” first.)

When the shoes don’t fit or are too worn, we’ll buy new ones.

I’ll replace the T-shirts that are too stained or don’t fit anymore.

Just a few new things will do.

I’m tired of everyone trying to sell me stuff, aren’t you? Fending off the online ads and the billboards and the junk mail is exhausting.

Keep it simple.

Replace what you must. Reuse stuff from last year; get as much use and joy out of it as you can.

Spend your money on experiences instead of stuff whenever possible. Aren’t you struggling with too much stuff anyway? Yes? So is your child.

So, here’s what I think is important about “Back to School.”

If you still have summer vacation left, LIVE it. Go back to your list of “things to do this summer” and see if there are a few more experiences that you can squeeze in. Want some ideas?

• Make popsicles. Yes, again.
• Visit the zoo.
• Spend as much time as possible at the lake/beach/swimming pool.
• Hike in nature.
• Go to a drive-in movie as a family. Remember those? They’re still cool.
• Go to the library, point your kid at an age-appropriate section and say, “Choose anything!”
• Break out the old pencils and do a little bit of math or writing. Warm up those skills just a little. Don’t overdo it!

Think of any special thing that you can’t or don’t do during the school year and do that!

Now, if you don’t have any summer vacation left, if your kids have already started school as many public schools in our area have done, here are a few more tips that can make “Back to School” safe and sane.

• Spend your time and energy establishing a good rhythm that works for your family.
• Focus on your values and reinforce them.
• Don’t sweat it. Allow for some time to adjust.
• Choose five new, easy recipes that you and the kids can make on school nights.
• Whenever time and weather allow, go outside.
• Be reasonable when buying.
• Thrift.