Dead day
Good evening friends. I am sitting here in darkness, lit by this obnoxious computer screen and by a small green Jack-O- Lantern smiling at me. Therefore, I must wish you a Happy Halloween. Perhaps if I were in America I might dread this holiday now because certain children’s costumes might scare the kids and force me to answer questions like, “Mommy, what’s a devil?” It would certainly bring masses of artificially flavored, artificially colored, sugary junk food into our house. But I have always loved Halloween for bringing the community together, the fun of dressing up and walking around in darkness in the autumn and actually seeing other humans out in the street. As I kid I loved all that, plus the masses of junk food.
Here in Australia Halloween is something new, fun for children, but not really embraced by many adults. It seems that the older the opinion holder, the more it is seen as yet another example of the Americanization of the world, which for younger people is not really a problem. But mostly, it is not celebrated here. Thus I can easily pick and choose which parts of Halloween I want to celebrate. Yesterday the girls and I celebrated all day long, dressed as butterflies. We started the day out with our wings and antennas and went on a treasure hunt for decaying bits of nature. Usually we hunt for beautiful colorful flowers, so this was actually a really cool twist to search for beauty in the dead. Both girls got really into it, Jacinta of course correcting her little sister, “No Genevieve. That’s not dead.” I’m not sure Genevieve really got it, but each time she picked up something dead, she pronounced it “dead.” Jacinta had mourned the passing of a beautiful red rose, but this day she lovingly gathered all of its dried up fermenting petals, put them in her basket to place on our nature table inside the house. She also noticed the rose bud forming on a branch nearby.
Our little table is now covered in dead ferns, orange and brown leaves, sticks, seed pods, and fermenting flower petals. We ended our walk in the orchard and picked some plums, nectarines and almost ripe apples. We then bobbed for them in the sandpit. Turns out that only the apples floated, I suppose that’s why I’ve never heard of bobbing for anything else! I was actually shocked that they were edible, I guess bat munched fruit should have been a sign that they were ripening up. Jacinta enjoyed trying once again at this silly game, but eventually just grabbed a nectarine with her hands and enjoyed it. Genevieve stuck her face in the water just for kicks, but found a much easier way to grab fruit out of a tub of water. After a while she just sat in the tub and enjoyed the fruit and the coolness of the water.
We intertwined my childhood traditions like popcorn balls, pumpkins and trick or treating with a true celebration of our loved ones who have died. We took present day Halloween and crossed it with some of the respectful traditions of The Day of the Dead and All Saints Day. Natural death is not meant to be so terrible, just part of the cycle. All Hallow’s Eve’s origins were respectful of ancestors and loved ones. I dug out pictures of our grandparents and momentos they had given to us, which were then placed on our nature table amongst the dead leaves and flower petals. For now, Jacinta loves hearing stories about everyone we know or once knew. Our little baby friend who died five hours after birth had her special place on our table, Theresa. Jacinta put some toys on the table that Theresa might have liked. We talked about these special people all day long. Today we had a special meal and made food that our Grandmas used to make, dining on the plates my grandmother made. I found a lot of these ideas in a book called Celebrating the Great Mother. I enjoy learning earth centered ways to celebrate holidays, it just makes sense. I look back fondly on the times I spent in church with my family but certainly the Church of the past is at fault for distancing many of us humans from earth based celebrations on the basis of being “godless pagan rituals.” There used to be mysticism in Christianity, less dogma and fewer people crying “Jesus save ME!” I know some places of worship are trying to tie earth celebration into their normal services and celebrations, which I think is wonderful and necessary to relieve us of our obsessive self-centeredness. So although I can’t yet create mysticism in myself and believe that good spirits are coming to visit us tonight because of our welcoming little Jack-O-Lantern, I hope to offer the beauty of mystery and the unknown to our girls.
The big unknown this week is the US election. I began writing this entry just after Halloween and due to extraordinary busyness, I will finish it as you are all waking up on Election Day. The outcome seems more predictable than it has been for the last couple elections, but we never can know. What a different feeling it will be tomorrow night, after America has decided who we want to lead us through the next four years of life probably including major economic change, environmental action, and the global nuclear arms race. It is major; imagine if we actually elect the first black man to the Oval Office. IMAGINE that! What a statement that we are truly ready for change. In one of the debates a woman asked the question that no American politician would choose, (I’m paraphrasing here) “Do you think that in this economic slump, we as Americans should be making any sacrifices?” Sacrifice? Compromise? What a concept. It was so nice to hear Obama actually admit the need to scrimp a little bit, I think he referred to energy saving. But scrimping seems to be something recent American politicians don’t discuss, never wanting to admit that us glorious proud Americans should have to scrimp. I’m sure they talked about scrimping and saving in the Depression, but have avoided the topic to keep that economy growing. But that’s where I get lost.
As I understand it, the US economy is based on the fact that Gross Domestic Product must continually grow to make it all work. They never mentioned this topic in college, but I have always wondered where will the earth find all the extra resources to keep up the growth? I suppose that is why we need other countries, economically, to exploit their resources to keep our economy continually growing. But can we ALL keep growing our GDP or just a few energetic nations? What happens when the countries we depend on for our own growth decide they want to go out in search of the earth’s supposed “unlimited” supply of wealth? Obviously the US is experiencing a recession, and as a result, so are many other globalized economies. We will come out of it, as we always do, what goes up must come down. But as the climate warms up and wars for oil roll on indefinitely, I guess I wonder if we’ll come out of this recession with the same economic belief that consumption and standard of living must continually rise to keep our economy going. But politicians don’t often think beyond their four year terms, I wish they did!
And I’m sure you’re wishing I’d get off the election and talk about our peaceful life here in the country. I cut myself off pretty well from the onslaught of unwanted media and I am far away from America so I’m not sick of the “campaign.” But just contemplating such big ideas hurts my poor little brain, so I will move on. The evolution of one’s brain is amazing, depending on what you use and what has been allowed to fade. The other day I racked my brains to divide 120 by 6, actually wrote it down before I realized how dumb I have become. Perhaps the knowledge I have gained in the garden took the spot where I stored my mathematical intellect.
Our pomegranate tree is in flower! The bright pink rubbery looking buds have burst open into bright pink flowers. The kiwi vines were budding last week for the first time. Their fuzzy little buds have just burst into gentle white flower today. If you are under four feet tall you can stand below in its shade and gaze above at the beautiful flowers, hiding amongst the fuzzy green leaves. The artichoke plant has created its second and third fruits. It is actually a thistle. The precious vegetable you buy in the shop is actually the bud, picked just before it opens up and turns into a big purple flower. Our garlic terrace is almost ready to harvest. We have fifty potato plants that I can not hope to mulch as I should, but they are in flower, another fun job for the girls to pick off the flower. One great thing about growing some vegetables is that picking off their flowers actually makes them grow better veggies, certainly in the case of root and leaf vegetables. Jacinta is becoming a confident little gardener and loves to repeat little bits of knowledge as she takes them to heart. “Mommy, if you pick off the garlic flower, it makes the garlic head grow bigger,” my little teacher.
It’s a good thing Jacinta has Genevieve to teach, as she has a lot to share. She has taught Genevieve so many games in these past few weeks. They have actually come up with quite a few activities that they can do together and not fight. Genevieve is starting the “MINE” stage. Jacinta, mimicking me, quickly corrects her little sister. “Genevieve, that is not YOURS, nothing is YOURS, it is all OURS. We share EVERYTHING.” She doesn’t go into the spiel that the earth gave the materials for the item, that someone else made it, and someone else gave it to us and that we will probably pass it on to someone else after we grow out of it. But I’m sure she will someday. Funny enough, Genevieve somehow gets over the possession and moves on after Jacinta corrects her.
Genevieve has taken on Jacinta’s strong character, or more likely, came to earth with that herself. Both girls are very demanding. One of my biggest jobs is not allowing them to turn into little controlling princesses, of course by asserting my own very strong will. Genevieve is still waking up with the rooster, far too early for parents who can not go to sleep before 11 pm or sometimes midnight. Once out of her crib we try cuddling her like we did successfully with Jacinta (until Evie was born). She scoffs at that idea, “Mommy, get up!” I growl and roll over. After she eventually drags me out of the bedroom, I may lay down on the couch and try to watch her play. “Mommy, get up……Mommy get off pillow…Table!” No response from me, so she goes for politesse. “Mommy, get off pillow…pease!” I have to get up at that point and jump into the nonstop action of the day.
Today we cleaned up our Halloween nature table. Jacinta thought we were going to save all of the dead leaves and flowers in a box for next year. We sprinkled them all over one of our gardens and let go of them. The whole circle is so clear to her. She understands that those precious rose petals are going to rot and make our native berry bush grow. She can take what she is ready to absorb with the human element of honoring our passed loved ones. Although it is spring here, and we are not surrounded by fermenting leaves and empty trees, some how it all feels so appropriate, especially with the election. Letting certain things go, letting them rot, and eventually enriching the earth, preparing the way for beautiful things to come. Matt has just come in to report that the polls have opened in the US.
I will leave you. I wish you happy Election Day, and hope and pray that beautiful things do come with change.
Peace,
Shana
Here in Australia Halloween is something new, fun for children, but not really embraced by many adults. It seems that the older the opinion holder, the more it is seen as yet another example of the Americanization of the world, which for younger people is not really a problem. But mostly, it is not celebrated here. Thus I can easily pick and choose which parts of Halloween I want to celebrate. Yesterday the girls and I celebrated all day long, dressed as butterflies. We started the day out with our wings and antennas and went on a treasure hunt for decaying bits of nature. Usually we hunt for beautiful colorful flowers, so this was actually a really cool twist to search for beauty in the dead. Both girls got really into it, Jacinta of course correcting her little sister, “No Genevieve. That’s not dead.” I’m not sure Genevieve really got it, but each time she picked up something dead, she pronounced it “dead.” Jacinta had mourned the passing of a beautiful red rose, but this day she lovingly gathered all of its dried up fermenting petals, put them in her basket to place on our nature table inside the house. She also noticed the rose bud forming on a branch nearby.
Our little table is now covered in dead ferns, orange and brown leaves, sticks, seed pods, and fermenting flower petals. We ended our walk in the orchard and picked some plums, nectarines and almost ripe apples. We then bobbed for them in the sandpit. Turns out that only the apples floated, I suppose that’s why I’ve never heard of bobbing for anything else! I was actually shocked that they were edible, I guess bat munched fruit should have been a sign that they were ripening up. Jacinta enjoyed trying once again at this silly game, but eventually just grabbed a nectarine with her hands and enjoyed it. Genevieve stuck her face in the water just for kicks, but found a much easier way to grab fruit out of a tub of water. After a while she just sat in the tub and enjoyed the fruit and the coolness of the water.
We intertwined my childhood traditions like popcorn balls, pumpkins and trick or treating with a true celebration of our loved ones who have died. We took present day Halloween and crossed it with some of the respectful traditions of The Day of the Dead and All Saints Day. Natural death is not meant to be so terrible, just part of the cycle. All Hallow’s Eve’s origins were respectful of ancestors and loved ones. I dug out pictures of our grandparents and momentos they had given to us, which were then placed on our nature table amongst the dead leaves and flower petals. For now, Jacinta loves hearing stories about everyone we know or once knew. Our little baby friend who died five hours after birth had her special place on our table, Theresa. Jacinta put some toys on the table that Theresa might have liked. We talked about these special people all day long. Today we had a special meal and made food that our Grandmas used to make, dining on the plates my grandmother made. I found a lot of these ideas in a book called Celebrating the Great Mother. I enjoy learning earth centered ways to celebrate holidays, it just makes sense. I look back fondly on the times I spent in church with my family but certainly the Church of the past is at fault for distancing many of us humans from earth based celebrations on the basis of being “godless pagan rituals.” There used to be mysticism in Christianity, less dogma and fewer people crying “Jesus save ME!” I know some places of worship are trying to tie earth celebration into their normal services and celebrations, which I think is wonderful and necessary to relieve us of our obsessive self-centeredness. So although I can’t yet create mysticism in myself and believe that good spirits are coming to visit us tonight because of our welcoming little Jack-O-Lantern, I hope to offer the beauty of mystery and the unknown to our girls.
The big unknown this week is the US election. I began writing this entry just after Halloween and due to extraordinary busyness, I will finish it as you are all waking up on Election Day. The outcome seems more predictable than it has been for the last couple elections, but we never can know. What a different feeling it will be tomorrow night, after America has decided who we want to lead us through the next four years of life probably including major economic change, environmental action, and the global nuclear arms race. It is major; imagine if we actually elect the first black man to the Oval Office. IMAGINE that! What a statement that we are truly ready for change. In one of the debates a woman asked the question that no American politician would choose, (I’m paraphrasing here) “Do you think that in this economic slump, we as Americans should be making any sacrifices?” Sacrifice? Compromise? What a concept. It was so nice to hear Obama actually admit the need to scrimp a little bit, I think he referred to energy saving. But scrimping seems to be something recent American politicians don’t discuss, never wanting to admit that us glorious proud Americans should have to scrimp. I’m sure they talked about scrimping and saving in the Depression, but have avoided the topic to keep that economy growing. But that’s where I get lost.
As I understand it, the US economy is based on the fact that Gross Domestic Product must continually grow to make it all work. They never mentioned this topic in college, but I have always wondered where will the earth find all the extra resources to keep up the growth? I suppose that is why we need other countries, economically, to exploit their resources to keep our economy continually growing. But can we ALL keep growing our GDP or just a few energetic nations? What happens when the countries we depend on for our own growth decide they want to go out in search of the earth’s supposed “unlimited” supply of wealth? Obviously the US is experiencing a recession, and as a result, so are many other globalized economies. We will come out of it, as we always do, what goes up must come down. But as the climate warms up and wars for oil roll on indefinitely, I guess I wonder if we’ll come out of this recession with the same economic belief that consumption and standard of living must continually rise to keep our economy going. But politicians don’t often think beyond their four year terms, I wish they did!
And I’m sure you’re wishing I’d get off the election and talk about our peaceful life here in the country. I cut myself off pretty well from the onslaught of unwanted media and I am far away from America so I’m not sick of the “campaign.” But just contemplating such big ideas hurts my poor little brain, so I will move on. The evolution of one’s brain is amazing, depending on what you use and what has been allowed to fade. The other day I racked my brains to divide 120 by 6, actually wrote it down before I realized how dumb I have become. Perhaps the knowledge I have gained in the garden took the spot where I stored my mathematical intellect.
Our pomegranate tree is in flower! The bright pink rubbery looking buds have burst open into bright pink flowers. The kiwi vines were budding last week for the first time. Their fuzzy little buds have just burst into gentle white flower today. If you are under four feet tall you can stand below in its shade and gaze above at the beautiful flowers, hiding amongst the fuzzy green leaves. The artichoke plant has created its second and third fruits. It is actually a thistle. The precious vegetable you buy in the shop is actually the bud, picked just before it opens up and turns into a big purple flower. Our garlic terrace is almost ready to harvest. We have fifty potato plants that I can not hope to mulch as I should, but they are in flower, another fun job for the girls to pick off the flower. One great thing about growing some vegetables is that picking off their flowers actually makes them grow better veggies, certainly in the case of root and leaf vegetables. Jacinta is becoming a confident little gardener and loves to repeat little bits of knowledge as she takes them to heart. “Mommy, if you pick off the garlic flower, it makes the garlic head grow bigger,” my little teacher.
It’s a good thing Jacinta has Genevieve to teach, as she has a lot to share. She has taught Genevieve so many games in these past few weeks. They have actually come up with quite a few activities that they can do together and not fight. Genevieve is starting the “MINE” stage. Jacinta, mimicking me, quickly corrects her little sister. “Genevieve, that is not YOURS, nothing is YOURS, it is all OURS. We share EVERYTHING.” She doesn’t go into the spiel that the earth gave the materials for the item, that someone else made it, and someone else gave it to us and that we will probably pass it on to someone else after we grow out of it. But I’m sure she will someday. Funny enough, Genevieve somehow gets over the possession and moves on after Jacinta corrects her.
Genevieve has taken on Jacinta’s strong character, or more likely, came to earth with that herself. Both girls are very demanding. One of my biggest jobs is not allowing them to turn into little controlling princesses, of course by asserting my own very strong will. Genevieve is still waking up with the rooster, far too early for parents who can not go to sleep before 11 pm or sometimes midnight. Once out of her crib we try cuddling her like we did successfully with Jacinta (until Evie was born). She scoffs at that idea, “Mommy, get up!” I growl and roll over. After she eventually drags me out of the bedroom, I may lay down on the couch and try to watch her play. “Mommy, get up……Mommy get off pillow…Table!” No response from me, so she goes for politesse. “Mommy, get off pillow…pease!” I have to get up at that point and jump into the nonstop action of the day.
Today we cleaned up our Halloween nature table. Jacinta thought we were going to save all of the dead leaves and flowers in a box for next year. We sprinkled them all over one of our gardens and let go of them. The whole circle is so clear to her. She understands that those precious rose petals are going to rot and make our native berry bush grow. She can take what she is ready to absorb with the human element of honoring our passed loved ones. Although it is spring here, and we are not surrounded by fermenting leaves and empty trees, some how it all feels so appropriate, especially with the election. Letting certain things go, letting them rot, and eventually enriching the earth, preparing the way for beautiful things to come. Matt has just come in to report that the polls have opened in the US.
I will leave you. I wish you happy Election Day, and hope and pray that beautiful things do come with change.
Peace,
Shana
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
10:44 PM
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