Life is good. What a fabulous weekend!

My dear Dakini had dinner with us on Friday night. We are so fortunate to have her living so close. The children did all their wacky tricks for her.

On Saturday, I got to attend the Waldorf in the Home conference on Mothering and Spirituality: Resourcing Feminine Wisdom, put on by Rahima Baldwin Dancy of Informed Family Life and author of You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, which was held at my son’s school here in Fair Oaks. I only attended on Saturday because of resources and because I’m not ready to spend all weekend at a conference away from my boys. But I’m so, so glad I went! It was so inspiring and awesome to be in a huge high school gym full of women (and a few men) talking about the goddess and the feminine divine. Seriously, I’ve never been anywhere with that many people willing to even consider the topic in my life, and it’s a topic very close to my heart, particularly during my twenties. We heard keynote speaker Nancy Jewel Poer (“Honoring Mother Spirit and our Amazing Spiritual Feminine Gifts”), author of Living Into Dying and children’s book Mia’s Apple Tree and a founder and faculty member of Rudolf Steiner College and the founding teacher for Cedar Springs Waldorf School. She showed amazing slides of goddesses/world-mothers from all traditions and the modern day and spoke of the soul work of mothering. She asserted that women are the bridges between heaven and earth, bringing spiritual inspiration, love, and beauty to the lives of all those around us.

We also heard keynote speaker Regina Sara Ryan, author of The Woman Awake: Feminine Wisdom for Spiritual Life. She spoke about becoming Mother and seeking the Universal Ma, and encouraged us to cultivate ways to see and honor the Mother in us all. Big on her list of recommendations was to find our Delight and Creativity, whatever they are, and then engage in them regularly because this is a way to build love. It was all seriously cool. It made me think of all my dear Adelphai, with whom I have wandered many a California hillside and braved many a starlit night to find our goddesses.

I went to a great workshop called “Mothering Our Lively Sons,” which I’m sure you’ll agree was created just for me! Or so it seemed. I got some new insight on boys and their needs, their unique way of communicating and processing language. I’ve definitely come away with some good ideas to ruminate on and techniques to try out at home.

I loved the conference, but I was also delighted to come home to my two wonderful sons and my tireless, selfless husband. Asher fell asleep in my arms and we had one of those glorious moments together, rocking in the rocking chair, holding and being held and feeling perfectly at peace with the world. I don’t always feel this way as a mom, so when I do, I hope to cup it gently in my heart so that the feeling may feed me in times of stress and angst.

And the rest of the weekend was superb, too.

There was a haircut for Lucas, who said, “Thanks, Mom! I feel great about my haircut.” We put Lucas’s hair clippings out in the backyard in the hopes the birds would find them and use his silky locks for their nests. Is that gross or sweet? I don’t know…

We enjoyed a steak dinner with sauteed chard from our garden, made by Ian, who spent his Saturday replacing my car battery, caring for our children, and finishing our flagstone pathway. Oh, and cooking us dinner.

Some hot tub time with my hubby under the stars.

We made a trip to the nursery (squee!) for ground cover to plant between the flagstones on our new garden path.

Lucas pronounced that he wished to turn part of the boys’ digging hill into a vegetable garden. After our cautioning that he and Asher would have less space to dig if he planted a garden, he confidently told us he was really wanting to do it. I guess he’s enjoying gardening class at school! So, we bought seeds (corn, rainbow chard) and four tomato plants, a watermelon plant, and a fancy cucumber. We amended the soil a bit and he set to planting them himself. He also planted pumpkin seeds that we had saved from our (orange and white) jack-o’-lanterns from last fall.

We had a lovely two-mile bike ride with NoNo and Mars this afternoon, who were gracious enough to ride all this way to meet us. It was a fun reminder that riding bikes is so good for us all. Asher is outgrowing his toddler seat on the back of my (girly, girly pink) bike, yet I don’t think he’s quite ready for the tagalong bike. His feet kept kicking my calves as I pedaled!

Ian filled up our bird feeder that had languished in the garage long enough.

We spent time in the shade planting our new ground covers: chamomile lawn, pennyroyal, and ajuga (chocolate chip variety). We’re hoping they will fill in the spaces between the stones. The chamomile lawn and pennyroyal smell marvelous when you touch them! See how cute the ajuga is?

The boys played in the sprinklers.

I used scotch tape to repair of a very well loved, well used copy of Where’s Waldo in Hollywood that used to belong to Grandma’s third grade class.

For Sunday dinner, Ian’s yummy broiled tuna steaks with homemade lemon aoili, salad, and green beans! And a fine Petite Sirah accompanied them.

Our bedtime stories were two stories from A Donsy of Gnomes, a sweet book I bought at the conference. Lucas’s eyes were full of stars when I read him the stories, and that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile.

We visited Muir Woods National Monument last Sunday. It’s a gorgeous old-growth coast redwood forest that sits on the edge of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area of California. We were hoping for a shady, easy hike for our kiddos in a breathtaking environment and my, did we get it! The price of admission was free, thanks to the National Park Service offering free admission the week of April 17 to April 25 in honor of Earth Day…

… which is today. So Happy Earth Day!

It was a perfect day. Gorgeous, warm. The park was crowded, but not so much that we felt we had made a mistake by coming. While hiking we heard at least six different languages being spoken, and possibly many more. At some point, my Californian ear just gives up and tries to determine a basic geographical origin, not a specific language. People were mostly very friendly.

I took this picture while sitting on a bench and leaning way, way back to shoot the tree behind me.

Twisty roots beside the path.

Sparkling leaves (Bigleaf Maple, I think).

The woods were bathed in shafts of sunlight and great swaths of shadow.

Leaping over a rivulet. Everywhere Lucas went, Asher followed closely behind. I think we all hiked about four miles that day, and Asher kept right up.

Lucas has a great eye for spotting creatures and also a gentle touch.

Goethe would be so proud! Lucas took his sketchbook and colored pencils along so he could draw in the forest. He chose as his subject the Bicentennial Tree, which started its life right around the time of our nation’s birth. There was a plaque and everything.

The creek runs through the park, at times quiet and other times burbling.

Another of Lucas’s trail finds: a very quick beetle.

A pretty lady we met along the way. Ferdinand Iris?

Too many pictures in one post? Probably. Sorry. I have many more on Flickr if you care to visit Muir Woods with us—sort of. Anyway, I hope for Earth Day you get to visit some unique, wild, or beautiful place on this earth, even if it’s only your own backyard.

It’s so easy to fall in love with nature in the springtime. I do every year. I know not everybody is into Earth Day and I know that the problems that face us as caretakers of this planet are vast—sometimes too grim to contemplate. We all make choices every day and I know I do not always make the best ones. And yet I think the first step to solving some of these massive issues is to instill in our children a love of this amazing world we live in, to cultivate a sense of reverence for the nature that is all around us.

Teaching children to appreciate nature is really not necessary; they already love it, wonder at it, learn from it. Children love animals, rocks, sticks, butterflies, flowers. Children need to splash in puddles, dig in the earth, and run their hands across the bark of a tree. They do this without our prompting, as long as we allow them to, discovering all along, unearthing small mysteries and miracles every day.

There is a wealth of children’s books about the earth. More are being published every day and your local bookstore or online retailer is sure to have a display or special on such books in honor of Earth Day. Some have a clear, scientific slant and some have a cute, cuddly animal slant. Honestly, there are so many that no single family could possibly explore them all!

What is a trifle harder to find are books with a reverent stance, that are poetic or provide a global ecological stance without being ALARMING. Here are a few we enjoy:

Clockwise:

Frank Ash’s The Earth and I — A simple, rainbow-hued story of a boy who loves the earth and cares for her; perfect for preschoolers.

Graeme Base’s Uno’s Garden — A story of people moving into an unspoiled Eden and ruining it, and then the gradual return of the marvelous creatures and plants that lived there. Eventually they achieve balance with nature. It is also a mathematics story. Asher loves the creatures and the challenge of finding the Snortlepig. Lucas likes the pictures and the math.

Nancy Luenn’s Mother Earth — A beautiful and poetic personifcation of the earth, with a message that we should enjoy all that the earth has to offer and give back to her, too. I found this at the library and then scoured the Internet to find a copy for our home. I think it may be out of print, but you can still find copies.

Linda Glaser’s Our Big Home: An Earth Poem — Illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators, Elisa Kleven, this book is intricate and stunning: “We all live here. People, ants, elephants, trees, lizards, lichen, turtles, bees. We all share the same big home.”

Tony Johnston’s The Whole Green World — Also illustrated by Kleven. A girl counts her many blessings: shoes, a dog, a stick, a sack of seeds, a watering can, the sun, birds, ladybugs and ants, breezes, cake, a book, the moon, flowers and trees.

From Mother Earth.

From Our Big Home: An Earth Poem.

Shari Halpern’s My River — A used bookstore find published by Scholastic. Perfect for little ones. It shows how the river belongs to all creatures equally.

Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children — This book is a good investment and one I’m sure we’ll keep for many years.

Joseph Bruchac’s Between Earth & Sky: Legends of Native American Sacred Places — For slightly older kids, this book tells of earth legends from various native peoples. The oil painting illustrations are lovely.

Nature Crafts for Kids — This is where I first saw the Easter eggs with the negative prints of leaves and flowers. Make a barometer, a birdbath, pressed flowers, candied violets, a sundial, baskets, evergreen garlands, and much more. Another keeper.

If you like what you see here and choose to purchase one of these books for your family, click the links here—my family will be supported just a tad by your purchase.

What’s in your Earth Day book basket?

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Last Friday, before this most recent rainstorm, we all took off on a little day trip to Amador county to see what we could see. We were finally all feeling mostly healthy after our sequential colds (which I didn’t dwell on much this week because we were all home together and taking life pretty easy anyway). The day was gorgeous and we had so much fun.

We started out at one of our favorite local spots: Chaw’se Indian Grinding Rock, near Volcano and Pine Grove, California just 8 miles east of Jackson. It’s a lovely, well-maintained state historic park with an educational center and the largest bedrock grinding stone in North America. This is where Miwok people ground their acorns for centuries. The wildflowers were dressed to impress and I enjoyed them very much.

I didn’t know manzanita trees flowered like this:

We had a yummy picnic and then hiked the short loop trail through the woods. Asher is such a trooper when we’re hiking small trails like this. He really likes it when we all stay together, though! Of course, Lucas likes to rush ahead.

Then we ventured on to the Black Chasm, which was only another 10 minutes’ drive up the road. We paid for the tour into the cavern, which is pretty damned spectacular. I had to carry Asher in our Ergo on my front and feel my way down the slippery, wet staircase into the cavern. It was exciting and a bit scary, but we all did it! Lucas was very brave. Because of carrying Asher, I didn’t bring my camera into the cave—it would have been just too much to manage. I’m sad not to have any pictures, but I can tell you that it was so beautiful and very well lighted. This cave has a great display of helictites, which are very rare and weird and formed from hydrostatic pressure. (If you go to the website, you can see pictures and even a short video.)

Above ground, they had a flume and we hunted for crystals in the sands. Asher made friends with a little boy who lives there named Kit.

We stopped at a lovely winery after our exertions, where the kids ran around in a safe picnic/game area. The wines were pretty nice and we came away with three bottles. Mmm.

Our adventure culminated with a walk through Sutter Creek and dinner. Asher was asleep as soon as we climbed into the car. Such a great day!

More photos from that lovely day at the very end of March at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center preserve.

I don’t know what this tree is, but it has pretty red chains of blossoms.

He is so brave and adventuresome now. His eighth birthday is only three weeks away.

A Zen moment, relaxing and watching the American River drifting by.

Aren’t they stunning? Tiny white stars twinkle on this vine. I couldn’t get enough of these darlings.

Sometimes the brightest colors of the day are found closest to the ground!

Climbing and chilling on a fallen tree. They both bravely walked along this giant (Asher held my hand while doing so).

I’m behind in my blogging. My experiences and photos are stacking up and waiting in line to be showed and kept here. I think this secretly means that life is full these days.

We took this lovely walk on the first day of the kids’ Spring Break. Lucas had a morning class about bird-watching at Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael, and when Asher and I arrived to pick him up, we all walked through the preserve along the American River for a while. (Somehow I managed to get Asher only half dressed this day.) The day was overcast but comfortable and the preserve was glorious in every way.

Glory in the green, green grass, particularly inviting for this little “lello” bunny.

Glory in the purple vinca major (AKA periwinkle), which is not a California native plant but has naturalized. (I love it.)

Glory in the group of deer we patiently watched while they grazed, especially this mama and fawn.

Glory in the tiny pink wildflowers, only an inch or so tall, and in the great oak trees.

Glory in boys being free, courageous, goofy, and happy in wild places.

My heart swells when I see my children in places like this, where we are safe and comfortable, and free to ramble on down the trail, or to pause to savor a vista or follow the erratic flight of a butterfly. I love coming here because we are guaranteed to see and hear wildlife, no matter the season. And I love how I feel when I’m here with my family—like maybe for once I’m doing something JUST RIGHT, that maybe I’ve found a perfect moment of happy calm for them and for me. I love the great big sky, whatever its color, and the intricacies of the natural world—the turn of a leaf, the texture of the bark, the smell of the air.

This nature walk was so tremendous, I’m going to post more pictures in a “Part 2.” I can’t help it. They make me feel tranquil.

OK, I am happy to admit this week of Spring Break is turning out to be really great. My husband is on vacation, so we are all together. I’m enjoying everyone’s company. This is not to say that every moment is stress-free, but family life is easier when two parents are around to mediate squabbles, entertain, converse with, fetch, help with runny noses, and feed us all. Ian and I can kind of tag-team and that’s a sanity saver. I love being able to reach out and touch him whenever I want to, to know he’s got my back or an eye on the children when I am otherwise occupied with editing or some other task.

Useful, fun projects are getting done around here, too, like planting flowers and our first vegetables of the spring/summer growing season, and fixing broken gates. It’s lovely to be outdoors in this gorgeous, comfortable weather! Short sleeves for Ian and Lucas and me. Asher’s a bit more bundled in long sleeves and sweat pants because of his cold.

Today I spent several productive, happy hours filling my wheel barrow full of gorgeous mulch from my friends Zindelo and Jeanne and spreading it in my backyard flowerbeds. It was nice and easy work on a cool day with a satisfying result. I also planted pansies and petunias in areas where the sprinklers overspray. Putting new plants in my yard is easy; making sure they all have a source of water they’ll desperately need in the hot Sacramento summers is the hard part.

The other day, when my back was sore, Ian planted for me: 3 Spanish lavenders, 3 azaleas, 2 geraniums, 1 blueberry bush, 1 magnolia tree, 1 lilac, and 1 orange-flowering perennial whose name I forget. It’s supposed to bloom almost year-round.

Ian and I have even had two lovely dates this week, which gives us time to refresh and reengage with each other. It’s good to remember why we got into this family business in the first place: because we LIKE each other and want to be together. Last night we got to see Elvis Costello play at the Mondavi Center in Davis. He was solo, and the music was terrific. I didn’t enjoy everything he played, but most of it. A good mix of old and new tunes.

Even as I’m enjoying my time at home this week, my mind is turning outward to summer activities. I’m starting to explore some summer camp options for Lucas. I am excited to learn that the Discovery Museum has two summer camps for 7/8-year-olds, on the topics of general science and space exploration. I think he’ll eat them up. I’ve carefully broached the subject of the Magic Circle Theatre summer production (you know, without letting on how FREAKING AWESOME it would be for me to see Lucas joyfully performing onstage). He’s interested. I’ll probably ask him a few more times before signing him up—to let him think about it a bit first.

Tomorrow we’re going on a ramble all together. We may head to Sutter Creek and see what we can see, or perhaps up to Placerville or Nevada City. Really, it doesn’t matter much. My eyes crave new sights. So long as there is one winery to stop at, I’ll be happy, as I am right now.

No doubt about it. Ours was a bounteous, Easter-filled weekend.

We hosted a wonderful gathering of friends on Saturday—one of our famous, all-day brunches. Our home was warmed by many dear ones and terrific food. We had an egg hunt for the kiddos and lots of chill time for the grown ups.

Sunday morning, on Easter, we woke very early to find the Easter bunny had come to our house and nibbled up almost all of the carrots we left out for him. He left us flowers and strawberries, and baskets of goodies for Lucas and Asher.

The Bunny also brought fun Easter books for the boys. The Easter Egg by Jan Brett for Asher, and The Story of the Butterfly Children by Sibylle von Olfers for Lucas. We love both of these author/illustrators very much! And we’d highly recommend either of these books to other children.

The baskets contained small toys, like needle-felted chicks inside colorful wet-felted Easter eggs. Asher received a wonderful wooden family of four bunnies with three bushes for them to play among. He got wrist ribbons for when he needs to fly like a bird or a butterfly, or perhaps even a yellow dragon. And there were some soy crayon “rocks,” but I think they look a lot like jelly beans.

Lucas received a big-boy felting needle with an egg-shaped handle, a wooden biplane model kit, a super-fancy stone egg, and some springtime note cards, in case he would like to write to his friends, whom he has been missing while on spring break.

We had a wonderful breakfast at VoVo and DiDi’s house, visited with Auntie Kelly and Matt and hunted even more eggs! Grandma had Easter baskets for them there, too.

We hunted again later in the day at RoRo and Nana’s house. (That’s a lot of egg hunts for two small boys, but they enjoyed each of them.) By the end of the day, Asher was hunting eggs like he’d been doing it every day of his life! He was dropping very few by the end. Lucas and Asher each got another book (can’t wait to read Stuart Little with Lucas) and more candy there. Two tiny babies were there, Alice and Travis. (And Asher hardly recognized them as humans.)

By the afternoon, the cold had turned to heavy rain showers and we were glad to get home, safe and snug that night. It was a marvelous two-day holiday for us and we are still enjoying our new goodies. Alas, Asher isn’t too keen on eating the hard-boiled eggs.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.