The Olympics Games – A Fifth Grade Waldorf milestone.

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At the end of the Fifth Grade, when a child is of secondary school age, it is a tradition amongst Waldorf schools to hold an athletics event, that they call the Olympics, based very loosely on the original Olympic Games held in Ancient Greece. In the fifth grade curriculum, pupils study Ancient Greek and Ancient Civilisations, so by the end of the school year they are very familiar with Ancient Greece.

Waldorf schools consider children of 11 years (grade 5 age), to be at the height of their strength and stamina, before the onset of puberty, and what better way to celebrate this time than this unique athletics event.

My daughter’s school went one step further and turned the whole preceding week into a feat of determination and stamina, when they undertook to hike the 24 mile plus distance between their school and the host school.

Here they are being waved off and cheered on by the whole school 

Leaving on a hot Monday in late June, they walked eight hours a day, for three days, cross country, in the relentless heat. Every night they camped somewhere different.

Parents were tasked to set up and take down the camp daily and were responsible for catering, shopping, walking and all the preparations. It was a big job, but absolutely worth it: the teacher and children so appreciated arriving at a well set up camp and immediately being able to relax, cool down and play after their long walk. They most certainly deserved it!  I hear there were plenty of water fights! 🙂

We were so impressed by this small class of nine’s determination and fighting spirit to complete the walk without complaint and to enter into the spirit of the event.

They arrived at the host school, to a “Welcome”banner and many of children from other schools, who had just arrived by bus, were in awe of their achievement, before any of the athletic training had even started!

This particular Olympics was held at a large Waldorf school with extensive grounds. There were over twenty different schools taking part, from England and abroad, including Poland, Bulgaria and Germany and all were camping on the school grounds in preparation for the event.  I estimate around 350 pupils or so.

My daughter’s class had spent many months last year training; with morning runs around a track in the park and practising a variety of Olympic sports, including javelin, discus, high and long jump and wrestling, so they were well prepared for the next three days.

There were two days of training before the actual event, where the children from the different schools were divided up into groups, representing Ancient Greek Cities. It  was an opportunity for children to get to know other Waldorf schooled children. Each City was led by an Archon, who was typically a fifth grade teacher, and had a different ribbon colour. Ribbons were tied to a long pole that the Archon held, so that the groups knew where to assemble. My daughter was in “Marathon” which had a light blue colour. She was happy with that, loving blue as she does 🙂

It was such an inspiring event, I just had to share it with you and I must say I am enjoying reliving it myself! 🙂  Unfortunately I lost my camera battery the day before the event and didn’t have the time to purchase another. Luckily after trying all kinds of options, I was able to borrow a friend’s camera for the event. The photos aren’t as clear as I would have liked, so I apologise in advance for some of the fuzzier photos, but I wasn’t used to the camera and there was a lot of movement! I wouldn’t have missed recording this milestone event in my daughter’s life, for the world. It really is such a glorious way to mark the end of the primary school years and this memory will last the children lifetime, of that I am sure.  I certainly still carry the memory in my heart with such pride. 🙂

The families were able to camp onsite overnight on the Friday, but away from the pupils. This was just as well as we had to rise early on Saturday!

By 7.45am we were all gathered for the Opening Ceremony. It started with a steady drum beat echoing through the arena, followed by a torchlit procession of children (one child chosen from each City). The other children followed in their “Cities”, all dressed in white tunics with bare feet, as they would have been in Ancient Olympia.

Each child wore a belt that they had made themselves (parents had made the simple tunics). My daughter had embroidered some Ancient Greek writing on hers. I don’t think it was anything too meaningful though!!

The big torch was lit and the Games could begin.

The first event was the “Marathon”, which was a mile long run around the grounds, finishing on the running track. My daughter loves to run and is the fastest in her class, over long distances, which she is proud of. Due to every child running the race, she found herself quite far back at the beginner’s line and it was difficult for her to push forward until part way through the race, but she did herself proud, being one of the first girls to reach the finish line and beat a lot of boys in the process- an important detail!! 😉 She is only a slight thing but built for speed, with fierce determination. She certainly doesn’t get her athleticism from me – I was always last to be picked for sports!

Then there was a sprint, called “The Dash”, where the children raced 70m, ran round a javelin, and raced back. This was divided into girls and boys races.

High jump and long jump followed. The children could choose between these.  My daughter chose the long jump and each child was allowed three attempts.

The queues were long, but the excitement was papable and every child was applauded for their efforts.

Wrestling was next. My daughter didn’t want to participate, but we watched her classmates. The wrestling is done standing up in a circle. The aim is to push your opponent out of the circle, whilst palm to palm. No other part of the body is to touch the other. It was a very civilized sort of wrestling!!

Then came the javelin or discus. These events went on simultaneously, so the  children had to choose between them. My daughter chose the javelin, as she said she didn’t want to offer up the discus to Zeus!!! 🙂 They were once again allowed three attempts.

There was a “mini marathon” in between that my daughter didn’t participate in, which was a 400m race I think. She and her classmates enjoyed wandering around and enjoying refreshments instead.

The message was clear: the event was not about winning; it was about participation and doing the best of one’s own ability. The children were each praised for their own individual efforts: the grace of their running; the focus in their wrestling; the steadiness of their hand in their throwing; their determination and skill. It was a very encouraging event.

Lastly there was a relay race, which everyone took part in, running 80m each. Luckily my daughter took part in an early race as the heat was really getting to us and I was suffering from bad hayfever due to being in a freshly mown field all day long!

After the final race, there was a very moving closing ceremony.

The children sat in their ‘Cities’, in a circle around the central Olympic torch. The Archons called each child up individually and gave them a medal with a ribbon in their ‘City’ colour and praised them for their acheivements on the day and told each child what they had appreciated about their individual performance and efforts in the previous two days.

Some children were given slips of paper with these written down. My daughter’s group didn’t receive one and she has forgotten what was said to her because of all the excitement. I remember hearing grace, focus and determination, which I would definitely say apply to her! It was very moving and meaningful. Apart from tears of emotion, my eyes were unfortunately streaming with hayfever and the heat of the big torch close by, that I could barely see any of this or even find my way back to our camp without help!! 😦

There was a lot to celebrate, not least our lovely, supportive School Community 🙂

I love how Waldorf education celebrates the seasons, yearly festivals, important  milestones and The Individual. There is so much reverence and meaningful attention to detail. I feel this sends an important message to the Children of the Future; that their contribution is recognised and valued and that the Earth and it’s gifts are to be treasured and protected.

Anyone who has visited this blog will know I am a passionate advocate of Waldorf (Steiner) education. For those that want to know more, I wrote this post.

In the past I have written about the wonderful celebrations in the Kindergarten years, including the beautiful Kindergarten birthday celebration and the very moving Kindergarten leaving festival – see here and here.

In previous years, I have written about the meaning of some of the festivals we celebrate at school and how we honour them at home. These include: Candlemas  (2nd Feb), Valentine’s Day (14th Feb), Easter, May Day festival (beginning of May),Whitsun festival (end of May), Midsummer and St John’s (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September), Martinmas (11th Nov) and Advent (four weeks leading up to Christmas). Hope you find some food for thought here for creating your own seasonal festivals. 🙂

***May your life be filled with awe, reverence and celebration – of Mother Earth and of the gift of Life! ***

 

 

 

Surrender – lessons in letting go

I am slowly learning to let go…to accept things as they are….to trust in Divine Order…to surrender….

There are circumstances in life that can be trying. I find that fighting them or resisting them can be exhausting and cause more suffering than the actual circumstance itself.  I have been on a spiritual path for several years, but it has taken me a long time to reach this understanding and to be able to use the trials of life as “spiritual practise”.

To trust that everything is unfolding as it should be – that there is Universal Order, is difficult for us humans to comprehend. We like to control outcomes, to measure, to have scientific proof, but if we could only let go and trust, rather than micro-manage our lives, things would flow easier and the channel to our higher wisdom and the Divine would be more accessible.

As we trust that a seed will grow into a plant that will nourish us or lift our spirits with joyful colour in the spring and summer months, we must trust that we too are undergoing necessary growth and development through the challenges we meet. If we trust in Divine Order, the struggle goes out of things, we can relax and be open to receive. There is great freedom in this.

At this time,  both my daughters and my husband are ill in bed with a virus and I am holding the fort with a heavy cold of my own. 😦 All our lovely plans for the weekend had to be cancelled as well as a long awaited meeting with a dear friend after College on Tuesday.
I have been practising patient acceptance for a while now and realise I have a choice – to feel frustration and disappointment at what I could be doing (and to try to do some of it anyway…college work etc); or to surrender fully to this time at home and let go of expectation. In the act of surrender, I am able to be completely present to minister to my children both day and night and to answer their calls for loving care and physical affection at this time of vulnerability.  I am grateful for this time of closeness, when usually the girls are so independent.

Now my daughters’ fevers have passed and they are more alert, we have been watching some cosy old fashioned films together, including our two new favourites: Little Women and National Velvet and we will watch Anne of Green Gables (which we have already read and enjoyed) tomorrow, as these were some of my favourite films from my childhood, that I had yet to introduce my daughters to.

We have also cuddled up to read some of our favourite winter books, including The Sea Mice and The Stars, enjoying ginger biscuits and spicy apple juice as the Sea Mice do in this wonderful story. 🙂

I rarely sit down to share a picture book with my eldest daughter anymore, so it is a treat for me!

I have had a chance to do some knitting whilst my daughters rest and am making good progress 🙂

and even managed to sew two sets of bunting for my sister’s friends in the snippets of time in-between caring for the children. Hurrah!

The girls have helped to make pom poms for a “snowball” garland in moments when they have felt like sitting up, so we even have something to show for our time spent at home 🙂

And I have been inspired to write this post slowly…but surely…

It will probably be a couple of days before the girls make a full recovery, but what could feel like an inconvenience has actually been a gift. A gift of the present moment, of connection, of retreat, of hibernation even 🙂

There is always a gift if we look for it, I find. Happiness does seem to be a choice.

During the months, whilst I have been away from this space, there have been a few challenges in our lives. One of these has been changes in my childrens’ school life:

My eldest daughter’s class size shrunk at the end of last year (when some children left to start their secondary school education in the State system, including a best friend). This resulted in a class merger between her class and the class above – Grade 6/7 – and her class losing their teacher to a younger class 😦 My daughter felt her disappointment fully and whilst I sympathised with her frustration and disappointment, I tried to remain calm and centred so I could be proactive. Some words that resonated with me at this time were:

” God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference”  Dr R Niebuhr

So I did all that I could to prevent the merger, including rallying parents, helping with marketing efforts to try to attract more students to the school (with Brexit, these are difficult times for attracting new business…), writing copious letters and arranging a string of meetings with members of staff to see if there could be another way forward. I used prayer and meditation to help ground myself, but ultimately I had to accept that the merger would go ahead and that our dream of my eldest daughter staying at her Waldorf school until 16yrs may not come to fruition. I have had to let go and trust in the greater plan, whatever that will be. It will become clearer in time….

At the same time, I was meant to be studying for my Biomedicine exam in June and had to resign myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to study as much as I would have liked, due to prioritising my daughter’s class’s needs. I did what I could with the time at hand and had to trust that if this is my path, I would do o.k. It was another lesson in letting go and trusting in the rightness of things as they are. Fortunately it seems I am on the right path…..

And just this last week we found out that our youngest daughter will also be losing her much adored teacher in May as she returns to her home country.  😦 My daughter spent a whole day sobbing on and off, but has reached a level of acceptance despite her sadness. I think when something cannot be changed, all we can do it accept it. The future remains uncertain, but we are choosing to stay positive and trust that whatever changes come along, we will find a way that works for us.

I am trusting in the bigger plan and trying not to get too caught up in the detail, whilst still being proactive. This has not been my habit in life thus far. I have been an over thinker and worrier – a family pattern –  but it has got me nowhere, except spiking my cortisol levels and affecting my health and wellbeing. I see that now.

I think trusting in the bigger plan is really helpful in difficult times. And remembering that we have a choice about how we react to things. Our thoughts and attachment to ideals can be our biggest enemy; imprisoning us and making us truly unhappy, if we identify too closely with them.

The fire at our house that I mentioned in my previous post and the consequences, are another example of something that was beyond our control and where I had a choice about how I could react. I could have been frustrated that it created so much chaos and work and just before Christmas and even let it overshadow our preparations for Christmas, or I could accept what was and work with it.  I chose acceptance because it allowed my energies to be used productively; arranging our Christmas festivities etc. Of course I did feel fully the horror when it happened –  I certainly don’t want to deny my feelings.  But it really has been a revelation to see life’s obstacles as an opportunity to practise patient acceptance rather than resistance.

a page from the year planner that a kind friend gave me for Christmas 🙂

I have had some health challenges over the past years, which were highlighted last year when I started my studies.  Nothing major, but some chronic short term memory loss, difficulty concentrating and very low energy levels, which were interfering with my ability to study. I have been seeing a healthcare professional since September and following a protocol, including going to bed around 9pm for several months and have been following a restricted diet with numerous supplements to support my recovery. It has meant letting go of seeing friends in the evening, starting new projects and spending time alone with my husband in the evening, but I have had to accept this as part of my recovery and that my body needs a lot of rest and nourishment to be able to restore a balance again after years of neglect. I have put some of my life on hold and trust that if I put the effort in with the protocol, it will be worth it. This certainly has been an act of Surrender on my part as the results did not show for quite some time and I am still in the process of recovering and will probably be for some time. But I know that if I am to study and do the things that I feel a calling to do, I need to be in good shape! So I must patiently accept this time of waiting…I am still studying this year; learning about all the different modalities in brief – Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Chinese Medicine, Nutrition and Iridology. It is fascinating!  It is supposed to be a lighter year in terms of study requirements, but there is still an exam at the end. I haven’t found time to study yet, with one thing or another, but am once again trying to relax and trust that I will be granted enough time to study so that I can pass the exam in June.

It is a great comfort trusting all will be well. In fact, one of my favourite simple mantras for uncertain times is:

“All is well,  all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well”

I put it to a little tune and sing it to myself to soothe myself and to silence the worried voices. It really helps.

The agapanthus decided to bloom again in January 🙂

I could see all these challenges as a catalogue of frustrating circumstances that are ruining my peace of mind or getting in the way of my life’s purpose, or I can see them as an opportunity to practise surrender again and again. This does not mean denying frustration. Frustration at change or dismay/deep upset at bad news is totally understandable and a normal reaction to something that puts our life, as we know it, on hold or changes it irrevocably. It is necessary to feel our feelings fully, but ultimately we need to move beyond that to acceptance and surrendering to what is and move forward from that perspective. Surrendering may not change the circumstances, but it is a way to freedom and peace of mind.

Because of the fire, we have a much reduced winter Nature Table scene, but King Winter had to make an appearance 🙂  

I attend a monthly Spiritual Philosophy group, in which we always do a guided meditation/visualisation. It is my absolute favourite part of the session as I spend time with my guardian angel. So much comes to light in these sessions, it is incredible. Last Thursday, we were encouraged to go sledging and we would meet our guardian at the bottom of the slope. I usually sledge with my feet as brakes when I don’t know the terrain or if it is a fast ride – I am cautious in that way – but as this wasn’t “real life”, I decided to take the brakes off and fly down the slope. Wow! My heart was so light and I felt so deliciously free, just imagining it. I can see this as a metaphor for life. If we put the brakes on (and try to control events), we are interrupting the natural flow of life and the joy of being in the moment. Life can pass us by and the opportunities that could arise often don’t when we are in a state of resistance. My guardian as usual had some wise words to impart, advising me that I already know what to do…I do think the answers are within us, the clarity that we seek, but we so often cloud things over with our overthinking, using our precious energy to try to control outcomes.

So I am trying to make a point of noticing when I tense up and if my shoulders and jaw become tight (when I am resisting something or holding on too tightly to an ideal outcome) and consciously making an effort to let go.

Another mantra that a friend and counsellor gave me that I have put to a simple tune and sing when I feel the need is:

“ As I let go, I heal on every level”

I would highly recommend it. It literally dissolves my stress. My shoulders lower and I know letting go is the answer.

When I attended an Artist’s Way group some years ago, on the first session, we were asked to write three goals for the course down. We were given a few arts and craft materials and five minutes to do it in! Here is mine:

To let creativity and ideas flow, we must let go and trust. In so doing we are opening the channels to Divine inspiration and what’s not to enjoy in this freedom! 🙂

These are of course just examples of my own recent personal challenges. The world is full of much greater challenges on a larger scale, but perhaps practising  meeting our own personal challenges with equinamity and acceptance is a good start. Many things are not within our personal control, so we do need to learn to live with uncertainty every day and accept it as part of life. But we do have some control over our inner terrain, our thoughts and reactions and we can practise choosing  peace and harmony.

This has become an epic post, written over many days!!!  I felt I wanted to share my feelings on this subject as I know we all go through trials and challenges, some that in retrospect may seem trivial and some that shake the foundations of our life as we know it. We all need to have a toolbox of aids to get us through these times. Above all else, I think Faith is the most important; be it Faith in our ability to handle things; Faith that things are as they should be; Faith in Universal Order and of course Faith in the Divine.  Faith is such a comfort and so strengthening.

Wishing you all a good dose of Faith in your lives xx

I leave you with one more mantra that I have put to a tune and sing often. So joyful!

“My love is vaster than a mountain,
My peace is a deep as the sea
My joy is like a radiant sun,
My spirit is strong and free”

 

Calm after the storm – A New Year’s Retreat

As I am writing, I am struck by the beautiful sunset outside the window. The bare branches of trees stretch up to the colour drenched sky and I am filled with awe at the glory of nature and the rich colour palette bestowed upon us at (what we imagine to be) the bleakest time of the year.

The New Year has just begun and as ever it feels full of hope and promise. Our family of four and Millie (our puppy) are on a week long break from the busyness of everyday life – to retreat a little (hibernation is always my winter wish...), to play, to rest, to create, to enjoy nature and each other.

In this quiet space, we are making the time to renew our loving intentions towards each other and the world and resolving to let go of what no longer serves us. It is a gift.

The children are currently in the pool with my husband; jumping, diving, full of joy. Water really is their favourite medium for play – my eldest daughter says she feels light and full of energy, which she does not feel upon the earth, except when playing in very natural surroundings. They are so delighted that we have a pool here and visit it twice daily. Their eyes are wide with big beaming smiles as they duck and dive through the water and I know we are offering them a real gift of slowing down and being in the moment, just now. We are still in England (which is unlike us in January when we tend to seek the winter sun), but with a swimming pool on the grounds, everyone is happy.

And I am finding the time to write again, to craft and have long leisurely lie ins. Bliss.

It really is blessing to have this time together to regroup.

In the middle of December we had a house fire in our home. We typically do a star path on our Nature Table over Advent. You can see details at the end of this post. We place four small beeswax candles, held in star shaped cardboard holders on the table along the star path and light a candle (or two, three, four, depending on the Advent week) every evening whilst we sing and move Mary along the path to Bethlehem. We have been doing this for years and always blow the candle out right away after the song so that the candles do not grow too small before Mary reaches the stable. For some unknown reason; be it tiredness, carelessness, distraction, we are not sure, my daughters and I left two of the candles on and unattended and went to bed 😦 Luckily we have a smoke alarm, which alerted us all to the fire. The candles had burnt down and set the cloth on fire and the fire had moved swiftly to the television (which is hidden behind another cloth we use as “the sky” of our Nature Table), so by the time I got downstairs at around 11pm, the television was ablaze. My husband was at the back of the house unaware of what was going on, but acted quickly to stop the fire spreading to the electrics and curtains by throwing all manner of damp towels and clothes onto the fire and removing the television. He also tried to remove a burning basket of knitting wool and bamboo needles, but the smoke got too thick and the basket was too hot, so he had to leave it, but luckily it was away from the electrics and other potential fire hazards.  Three fire engines arrived and quickly put out the fire and blew the smoke out of the house with minimal mess. One of our neighbours was also a great help; giving us warm clothes and a duvet for the girls and our dog Millie, to snuggle under whilst they stayed in the car, parked some distance away at their request. The other neighbours slept through it all!! It was really horrifying at the time to see the lounge ablaze, but the thick dark smoke was the main issue as we couldn’t see properly and had to leave the building for health reasaons. Luckily all is  well and the main damage is limited to the lounge and hall where the walls need cleaning and redecorating. The wooden floor also needs replacing and some of the soft furnishings/rugs, but nothing irreplaceable really.

I lost a whole knitting basket full of wool and my favourite bamboo needles and a few items of clothes that my husband threw on the fire, but all in all, it could have been so much worse and I feel we were protected somehow.

It was an accident and where in the past, I may have berated myself about neglecting to blow the candles out, I have chosen instead to be gentle on myself, to focus on being thankful and feeling blessed that nothing worse happened. We are all fine after all, including the guinea pigs, who we had to leave in the house, so all is well. We were also able to have a wonderful Christmas celebration at home, despite the lounge being out of bounds. The insurance company has been nothing but understanding and generous in replacing our goods so far.

I was mid knitting the girls some Hogwarts jumpers – in Gryffindor and Slytherin colours – and wasn’t sure if I would finish in time, but was remaining hopeful and focused! The fire singed the jumpers in several places and due to time constraints, I asked if they might be able to replace them with “the real thing”. They were happy to help and two days before Christmas, they arrived, to the girls delight and my relief!! It felt like a little Christmas miracle 🙂

and here they are in their whole ensemble – courtesy of Father Christmas, the insurance company and kind relatives 🙂

So currently whilst we are away, cleaning work is being undertaken at home to remove the soot from the walls and shelves throughout the house, including those black webs we noticed developing after the fire , which we were told were soot webs, not cobwebs!! The place certainly looked dressed for Hallowe’en for the first few days and smelled like a bonfire! 😦

It was difficult to sleep in a house that smelled of acrid smoke, but with the help of a couple of air purifiers, the odour did dissipate after a while and we could sleep peacefully again. We regrouped reasonably quickly as Christmas was fast approaching – the show must go on and all that! 😉 In the week before Christmas we were able to host some visiting friends from the States for an afternoon of catching up and games. They gave us our new favourite game Eleminis – which we have enjoyed it on a daily basis since then 🙂 It is rather competitive but a lot of fun!!

On the 21st December we hosted a gathering of some of my “crafty” girlfriends and their children.

The children took turns decorating the two gingerbread houses that my friend Sofia and I had baked (one very late night) a couple of nights before and we ate, drank and made merry; singing all the Christmas songs we knew, with a variety of simple instruments as accompaniment. It really lifted the vibration of the house, which had been feeling rather sorry for itself. A loving hug of friendship for our home and us.

Luckily, we hadn’t had time to put our tree up in the lounge before the fire, so it didn’t smell of smoke and we enjoyed decorating it in the back extension, where we planned to have all our celebrations.

We also put another smaller “children’s tree” (with mainly homemade decorations) up in the playroom.

It felt healing to decorate the tree together and set our intention for a beautiful Christmas. We added a few new decorations that my daughters had made at school.

It felt cosy, and with the lounge closed off, we had a lovely celebration and probably one of our loveliest, quietest Christmases, just us four, for several days. We also had a couple of nice days out with friends

and we rang in the New Year with a favourite friend of ours at home

A fun game of charades!!  🙂

So really, although things looked rather bleak for a couple of days, there is so much to be thankful for and we have felt blessed by the many messages of support, friendship, kind offers of help and love. My husband and I even managed to go on a “date” on the 28th December when the girls went to friends’ houses – another Christmas miracle!! 😉

We missed some of our crafting time before Christmas due to the chaos at home, so we have been making up for it now on our break 🙂 The girls and I have enjoyed making some lovely window stars to adorn the windows of our holiday cottage.

We made some sixteen pointed stars this time as well as our favourite eight pointed stars. The sixteen pointed stars look almost floral to us, we think, especially the greens and reds.

I love the acute pointed star I made – it looks like a radiant sun, something that is often missing at this time of year! We love creating a warm, homely atmosphere wherever we go and adding our own touches 🙂

We also made a few pipe cleaner snowflakes.

I bought these shiny white pipe cleaners earlier in December with no real plan. I just liked them. It dawned on me they might make nice snowflakes and I am rather pleased with how they turned out.

We twisted four lengths of pipecleaner around an axis to create eight spokes and cut small lengths to twist around each spoke. A fast and easy craft!

We also cut out handprints of the girls hands – a yearly activity to mark how they much they have grown ( my youngest daughter had a big growth spurt over the summer and is almost catching up with her older sister!). This year they decoupaged their hand prints on cardboard (other years there has been felt, gold card, henna’d hands and hands used on a “family tree” painting.

My daughters also wanted to make their own Advent Calendars for next December.

My eldest decided upon a Hogwarts theme, as she discovered the Harry Potter books series this year and is captivated by the magic of it all.

My youngest says her Advent Calendar will be for us – mummy and daddy – It is so adorable – we all love it!

They are using water colours – a present from Father Christmas that come in a handy small tin where each section screws onto the next, so super portable.

and Lyra Super Ferby pencils – like they use at their Waldorf school – for the detail. I think this is going to be an ongoing project through January as they are only doing a little at a time.

As for me, as well as losing the girl’s sweater knitting to the fire, I also lost another work in progress. that I was making for myself 😦  I urgently felt the need to make a fresh start. Luckily I had some 4mm circular needles left (my only remaining needles – sob!!) and some yarn I kept in the studio, so I have started knitting this sweater – again for me! 🙂 and I must say knitting is such healing work – creating something new stitch by stitch.

We have also spent time contemplating the The Madonna Sequence each evening as we did last year, as the girls were keen to mark the twelve Holy Nights in some way and we used these Angel cards as a fun way to predict the twelve months ahead, with the girls drawing pictures corresponding with the month or the cards message.

I did my own special inner work, using Lynn Jericho’s Inner Christmas. Lynn, an anthroposophist,  has been sending Inner Christmas messages for the twelve Holy nights for a number of years, but this is the first year I have participated. This year, the contemplations centred around the 12 Inner Freedoms. Each day we received an email with some questions to work with/contemplate, centred around the twelve freedoms: freedom to expand, contract, centre and flow; freedom from ideals, oughts, fears and doubts and freedom of surprise, grief, love and questions. It was very freeing and thought provoking to work with these questions. I have been journalling every morning and meditating on the questions and would highly recommend this Inner work at a time when we are naturally more inward looking and  “when the veils lift that hide the spiritual world from our ordinary consciousness… and allow us to see with inspired clarity” (L Jericho).

Well, I’ve been away from this space for a very long time. I doubted I would return to my writing here, because once I was out of my weekly habit of writing, it was quite easy to let it go, as life felt full enough as it was. I even stopped taking photos for a month when my camera broke 😦

The New Year has arrived and with it, a new calling to write again, to share and record our family life, to express gratitude, for it is only a moment in time, being a mother to younger children. In the two years I have written here, a lot has happened and my daughters have changed so much. My eldest daughter is now 12 and although she still believes in magic, it is only a matter of time before her feet are firmly on the ground and cynicism and skepticism creep in; the Age of not Believing (Sherman Brothers ) and I won’t be able to share this part of our family life any more. So I will begin again and try to fill in the gaps as best I can.  Beginning is half the battle sometimes, don’t you think?

At a friend’s suggestion, each of us is writing down something for which we are grateful or something we enjoyed each day of 2019. My youngest and I want to put the messages in a jar and my eldest and my husband are going to write a list. 🙂 We routinely do this verbally at the end of the day anyway, but I think writing things down will be a more tangible reminder. It is especially a gift for the melancholic temperament (quite a few of us here!) to look back at how much goodness there is in our lives, when we may sometimes doubt it.

We will be returning home tomorrow and and luckily the bulk of the cleaning in our house has been done whilst we are away. Nothing irreplaceable has been lost so we really do count ourselves lucky. Onwards and upwards 🙂

Wishing you a peaceful and joyful start to the New Year 2019. May it be a blessed year for you all.