Arts, Environment and the Child: Walking the Wheel of the Seasons

Getting together with this project group has been difficult for me, especially due to my schedule. I missed the meeting where the overall book was chosen, and as I began to read it I realized it wasn't what I needed. I talked to Abby, and we agreed to modify the way things had been organized, and I was going to think about what I wanted to read. The next day I went to Madison Elementary. Along with some marvelous stuff, this was one of the hardest days I'd spent with the kids. One kid in particular, who's anger I've noticed before, was really having a bad day. He is often quite playful with me, even gives me little presies, but not this day. I was dealing with a couple of girls who were also difficult,(later the teachers were saying that everyone had been having a bad day - it seems to spread) and I just felt in over my head. I went home and lay awake for hours, wondering how I could've gotten especially the angry one to...I don't even know what...who knows what's going on for him? So, between my dissatisfaction with our reading material and my desire to understand and work with these kids, I finally realized that what I want to read about and understand better is child psychology. Not some Skinnerean behaviouristic crap, but, what;s going on with kids, and how can I better communicate with them? I've since gotten a Piaget primer, and a few suggestions for further study. It's cool to sit with discomfort sometimes because it can lead to resolution.

I was really excited to go to school this day because the week before I had offered to read stories to the kids on thursdays, if this would fit in with Mrs. Whitcraft's needs. She was delighted, and when I got to school she asked if I was ready to read. I said yes, and she handed me It's Your Day, a book about Gretchen Groundhog. It just so happened to be Candlemas, Imbolc, and Groundhog Day. How fortunate. Though the book said: "This Christian festival (Candlemas) is on February 2..." I changed it to read: "This Christian festival, based on an old folk tradition..." Yeah...there are ways...

Anyway, at first the kids were restless, but I didn't want to fuss at them too much, plus I just don't know how to MAKE them pay attention, so I just said a few things like, if you don't like who you're sitting next to, maybe you should move, and I said: We're all friends here, aren't we? A bunch of them said NOOOO...so I said, okay, but we all have to live together...I finally just started reading, first the little historical section, and then onto the story...well, within pages they were silent, eagerly leaning forward, and sitting relatively still...maybe I have what it takes just to get their attention with my magnetic personality, and performance skills...Next week Mrs. Whitcraft will be out, and she's allowing me to read a book I bought for them called "I Like You", and then do a writing exercise based on that. I thought it would be cool to have them write down why they like their friends, and then make a little book and call it Why We Like Our Friends. It'll be scarey, and I don't know if they'll go along with me, and I just don't know how to handle it when they don't. I don't like the whole tattling, punishment, no recess for you, sit outside thing, but...Maybe I'll just try entertaining them as best I can, and that might be enough. We'll see.

The moon for my group, 10th moon, was Moon of the Falling Leaves...my heart sank when I saw it...I'm still not ready to let go...but it is time...everything points that way...The group chose me to be the facilitator, but I would've picked Raven. (When the time came, she jumped in and moved things along, since I got kinda stuck.)Right away I saw a connection between the autumn moon and this Lunar New Year, and with Imbolc, the Earth-centered tradition celebrated at this time of year. Still letting go, but with new life stirring within. The colour red, being of importance for the Chinese New Year, currently lies strewn across my bedroom floor, along with pinks and fuschias, and whites, all in preparation for Valentine's Day. As I sat up pondering wednesday and thursday, it struck me that this red, red for New Years, red for Valentine's Day, is the red of life, that heart that still beats beneath the dormant world around us.

So, friday, with Chungliang...a few of us have tried to put into words what that day meant for us, but...I, for one, have not had much success. It was so subtle. There we were, dancing, my love, and assimilating T'ai Ji, the concepts which shape the movements. And coming to Earth, to letting it all go back into the Earth...I vividly remember Chungliang talking about filling up too much, and needing to let go and make room for...anything...This came up when he talked about I-Ching on saturday, how, as with a pregnant woman, fullness must give way, yang must open up to yin, one must let go for life to happen...

This form of communication was perfect for me, as I am a dancer. Ingesting philosophy via dance, movement, my body, I think makes it permanent, as permanent as anything is...I am in the Integrating Eastern Philosophy/Psychology class, and we are talking about Emptiness, and about Impermanence...Somehow this workshop literally embodied these concepts for me...During my years of dancing daily I often had what I would consider out-of-body experiences, and I often still do when I am just anywhere dancing, if it is a full out experience. My spirit seems to be dancing, and I do not feel bones or muscles, or the place I am in...only the energy surrounding me...and I myself am only energy, directed by and flowing to the music...I've heard from people watching me that I seem like fire on ice, and other things...Dance seems to take me over, music seems to take me over, and there is no form, only energy...Self-consciousness brings me back to matter, and I have often noted the flow stops...This is like meditation...

The idea of Impermanence is clear, but can be difficult...yes, everything must change, and this is the yin/yang concept to some extent, but...it is difficult to let go of loved ones...to live on without them...But without letting go, how can there be room for new loved ones? If the heart is turned to the past, how will it see the present, or the future?

Singing with Hannah and Heather was great...There we were, all in our blacks, me with my red scarf, in the darkness of the spotlight, something I enjoy, and have missed, giving out from our souls, our throats...giving out to everyone there...I love singing with other people, I love harmonizing...It feels more creative to me than the solo trip...And something about 3 women singing is just Witchified! Howling and cackling profusely with Heather was ultra Witchified, and laughing like that opens me up wide...Thank you Hirsh, for this wonderful experience you brought together...A lovely ritual for us all...

Abby, Heather, Natalie and I all went to the sauna friday...Heather suggested some toning...so we did, and it was such vibrational, vocal release. I just had to laugh, a good Hah Hah laugh, from my dantien, my womb...I felt very open.

I submitted my Painted Word article to the CPJ...1st essay I've ever submitted...exciting? not sure yet...

I've written nothing about this yet, so here goes: So far, pre-schoolers, kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders have planted their trees. It's great to watch how many of the kids want to get their hands in the dirt. Even many of the ones who said no at first changed their minds after watching their classmates. I wish I had more input about the activities around the actual 'ritual' of planting. The only group I had any input with was the preschool kids, because the Urban Foresters were short a person. I'd thought, well, we need to do something cool, so at the last minute I made up a song and the kids sang it when we were filling the hole back up with dirt: Hi Tree, Hey Tree, Welcome Here to Stay Tree; My name is_____, etc... So I noticed afterwards that the kids were talking to the tree, some were whispering their names over and over again to it...

Unfortunately this didn't happen with the other grades...and I feel they are not connected to the trees in the way they could be...But Madison has this fault: About every 30 minutes activities change, so no one ever really gets to settle into anything...I talked to one of the teachers who is new to Madison, and while she likes the school and many of the other teachers, she said this really cramps her style, and the learning curve for the kids...I think: Geez, this couldn't help with ADD...

The 1st graders got into the worms they were finding, and one of my fave boys was kissing his, and making it his wife...He's always going on about kissing...at 6. I remember having crushes by 6...Anyway, he put his 'wormy' back in the dirt by the tree, and I said There, now you can go talk to the worm in it's home by the tree...He said the worm had a castle for a home (referring to the large space by the tree).

I found out that 'all' the girls have crushes on this one boy in the class, who is really sweet, and cute, and smart, and thoughtful...I thought: Oh, there's hope for the future...

Today was sunny out, so I hand trimmed some of the wildness in the front and back yards. I have no tools, so I was just yanking, and doing some finessed twisting/ripping of extraneous dead bits...There is a hugely overgrown lavender bush in the front, and lots of other stuff which I trimmed, and I got rid of bottles from who knows when hidden beneath...I've only lived in this house since last autumn, so I don't know much about it, except that the backyard is pretty shady, and the front is pretty sunny. Herbs and nasturtiums are on my mind...

Today Mrs. Whitcraft was out, so there was a substitute, who expected me. Mrs. Whitcraft and I had agreed the week before that I was going to read the class a little book I bought, I Like You, and then do a writing exercise. I got them to gather around me, not on their "assigned" taped line spots, and they loved the little story...Then we were to write our own I Like You becauses on some fuschia paper I cut up. I asked them if they wanted to do it for someone at home, or pick names from the class. (Earlier, I'd talked to the 2nd grade teacher and she'd suggested the names from the class thing. I said, what if they don't like who they get? She said that would be a good way for them to find something nice about everyone.) Well, the kids chose names from the class by all chanting In the Class together repeatedly. So, they each pulled a name from my hand. Of course one girl really didn't like who she got, so I let her try one more time, but, she got the same name...So I told her she obviously just had to work with that one. Before we all started writing I said: Now you may not like who you've gotten, but we can all think of something to say, even if it's just because you have a cool shirt on, or because you sit far away (they thought that was funny). And that girl did a very nice job with her dilemma and wrote that she liked him because her mom knows his mom. I'd been all worried about their writing levels, but some kids got out their word books, some kids just drew pictures, and some just asked how to spell stuff. The substitute jumped in and started writing I Like You Because on the board, but I stopped her, saying, Oh, I'm sorry, but I just want to do it with them. So, hoping I hadn't offended her, I erased what she'd written and we all spelled and wrote it together. I think that was much better. She was kind of funny, an older woman, who was kind of funky with them, and also more physical than Mrs. Whitcraft. I don't think kids like having their heads held still to quiet them down, though...

Part 6 of Harry Potter is still out of the Madison library...dang...not that I have time to get immersed in that right now...but I look for it every time I go in there...maybe I'll get it over the break...Oh...me and the Witch thing...somehow it's gotten around that Iam a Witch, or part-Witch...they'll get tired of it sooner or later, I guess,but...when it first happened at a table outside of the classroom this one girl just called me out to everyone...She's a Witch, She's a Witch...other kids just stared at me...only two girls seemed to come to my side...shades of the burning times, of The Crucible...yikes...I've been here before...I hope to use their demands for examples of magick to help them learn how to listen to nature...

Met with Heather, Carly, Justin, Valerie, and Hirsh came for a few...nice potluck, to which I contributed only my praise, as I'd been working at the writing center all day and could bring nothing...We discussed Artemis and Athena...On the way home I realized that I need time to process...I'd researched stuff, and we all exchanged what we knew, and...though I feel like I understand and am frequently Artemis, Athena puts me off, always has...all that I'm for the Man, thing...But Heather is focusing on Athena more from the warrior-no-frivolity thing, from the being a leader kind of energy...Hours later I thought about how many times I've cut off my hair and lived as if I am at war, no time for play...How many times have I been in a mood to turn away from my own sexuality, my attractiveness as Woman, and be hard? I imagine a hardness to Athena, for she is that virgin goddess, who has no lovers, no children, is all about making Athens the top city-state...I had no desires to forge ahead ambitiously for anything, but I have felt that this world is no place for my softness...I have felt like taking up the sword, more in a metaphorical way...I almost cut off all my hair a few weeks ago, and again, it was out of this desire to be dissassociated from my femininity...so, while I don't like Athena because of her dissassociation from femininity, I've certainly been there myself...

As for Artemis, she is eternally 12 years old...free in the woods, with her friends...just where I'd like to be forever...pre being sexualized and objectified...pre being penetrated...still innocent, but in the flower of girlness...all the wild free flowing joy of it... that litheness that goes with it, before the weight of what's out there gets you...before you are liked or not...before you have to cross your legs and behave...while you can still talk to all the creatures and all the flowers and all the trees...

Well, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to make little Valentine's day cards for every one of the children in my class - 18 of them. And of course, by extentsion, to make cards for all of the people who I've had interaction with at Madison, as mentors and caring people who care for these children. What I thought would be fairly simple turned into a major art project. I wanted to put a piece of nature on each card so I found heather blooming everywhere and chose to put a sprig of it on each card, and the cards turned into bookmarks, and I spent hours and hours snipping out little pictures of flowers and chocolates, and boxes of chocolates from ads and things in magazines, and just got totally absorbed for I don't know how many evernings, all so I could get them to their school on the monday before V. Day. It was a labour of love, and my room has been filled with reds and fuschias and oranges and pinks and purples for weeks...I only wish I could have been there on Valentine's Day...

On thursday, my next day in, I sat while they did they're show and tell. One kid did a 'tell': "I have a Star Wars light saber, and...and it doesn't work anymore, and...I got it from Toys R Us...and...it cost One hundred and fifty thousand dollars"...

Another kid was holding my hand, and my arm, all the way to PE, and squeezing it, and eventually kind of biting it, the way puppy dogs do, and he said he was going to eat me up...He said: "I eat my brother. He tastes like chicken. "Cause he's fat."...oh, they are soooo funny sometimes.

Afew of the times I've been there recently for the Pledge of Allegiance...I have real problems with this one...I' ve stood up with them, but certainly not put my hand on my heart, and certainly not said anything...and I wonder how I could deal with that situation if I was their teacher? I just can't condone pledging my allegiance to much of anything besides concepts like love and integrity and loyalty and the search for truth and deeper meaning in life...the flag??? And there they are, obediently saying this shite, and they don't even know what the hell it means...so strange...so charged...

today (yesterday) I pulled stuff up out of the ground, since I have no shears, and I pushed big bushels of this unknown stuff out of the way so I could see all the soil beneath just waiting for something...I found a bunch of seashells in there, so someone had something going on before. Also, there was this ridiculous and strangely positioned black plastic garden border, the kind of thing usually made of wood, or stones, or...SOMEthing organic...well, besides the waste of space it was creating, it was repulsive and unnecessary to me, so I tore most of it up out of the ground...now I don't know what to do with it, but that's another problem...I had to leave one portion as it has been so grown over, but...I'm glad it's mostly gone...All of this is in the front part of the house, so I felt conspicously unsure of what I was doing, but hey...I also found a nice (trowel?) with which I plan to get me some english daisies, aka Bellis perennis...

It was nice getting so much dirt under my nails...I'm not sure if it was related, but about 6 hours later I cut off my hair...

Well,on wednesday, traumatized by my hair cutting, I chose to forgo a day of work at the Writing Center (my first time) and go to the 'gypsie nation' ritual dance...It was to be a dnace ritual for healing, and purification, both of which I felt in need of, and in the middle of in my own life...There was no talking, and the lights were dimmed...there were altars, (with battery operated candles...so strange...) and after warming up some, we all sat in a cirlce and were asked to choose and hold an intention for healing...then the music began...I haven't had much opportunity to freestyle dance to the kind of music I like dancing to since I left NY, and this was it...only drawback was the cement floor in that so-called traditional longhouse...I'm all about no talking while dancing, so I liked the set up. Overall, I was reminded how much dance is a ritual, and a meditation for me...and how quickly and easily I slide into some liminal space...

On friday I went to the Ceili, an entirely different experience of dance. A Ceili (kay-lee) is a Gaelic traditional social dance, and though one may begin with a partner, during the course of the dances one meets and often dances with every other person in the circle.. The steps are basic, though a bit challenging at first, and the configurations the circles make, what with weaving and waving and 7 to the right, 7 to the left, etc., take folks all over the place. It's quite the work out. The band, Fiddlehead, had a young girl playing the pipes, and they were great. I was in a short kilt skirt I have, and a blousy white cotton shirt, the only other person dressed like me was a guy with long hair and a beard. I started to have a gender crisis...To make it even worse, I'd gone with Heather, and she was in a dress, so I had to be the dude...yikes...still, everytime we switched partners, I would automatically curtsey to my new partner, who was always a girl being a girl, and the funny thing was the girls automatically would bow back! Anyway, this is a completely interactive situation, and full of hilarity...No one cares at all if anyone gets the steps right, it's all just fun, and laughter, and red cheeks, sweaty armpits and general good spirits...

Last night I went to Jakes with two friends of mine, an entirely different dance atmosphere...It seemed to be 80's night, which did not inspire me to get up and boogie...It's 2006, and I do like some music that's out there now...The crowd of folks was way different than either of the two previous dances, and of course alcohol was involved...There were alot of super macho army looking dude types, with bleached permed made up chiquitas, and alot of ass-grabbing, and humping, and...it was some other kind of ritual...It was more see and be seen...

Still, I'd forgotten about the power of dance for me...And I think our culture needs more of it...Evergreen almost never has dances...And dancing on a cement floor is not something I would want to do too often, especially with these old knees...But going into that space, that non-verbal, body emotive space, is like nothing else we do. Alone, it becomes silence, where one can unify with the cosmos...With others, swirling madly around, laughing, and touching hands, a connection beyond mind, personality, culture, likes and dislikes, happens...All words, all differences can dissipate into the air, and one can be left clear and bright and lay down to sleep, happy and content...I suppose, unless one's hoped for beloved has left one alone in the corner, or was seen smiling too much with another...I'd rather have dances like that to look forward to than go into some noisy bar with humping going on anyday...

I notice how expressive 6/7 year olds are with their emotions. They don't hold onto anyting, they just feel it completely, let it out, let everyone know how they are feeling, and then they move on, forget about it, go skipping out of the room together and go play...I notice how much I am still like that...I guess it makes grown-ups uncomfortable, and I see how busy they are trying to get kids to stuff it and Behave...Still, aren't adults completely pent up? I believe it leads to diseases...